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Contents AUGUST 2008 VOLUME 16 / ISSUE 8
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Ian Kemp Two European defence exhibitions in June, Eurosatory 2008 in Paris and the Defence Vehicle Dynamics exhibition in the UK, saw the unveiling of several new protected mobility platforms and the announcement of vehicle teaming arrangements. Influenced by the US-led war on terrorism these vehicles can be grouped into two categories: the first category is generally intended to replace softskin or lightly armoured light utility vehicles in various combat support roles and the second category is intended to improve on the initial Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle designs.
Front Cover Photo: Chengdu J-10 “Vigorous Dragon” fighter on display in Beijing at AVIC-I main complex with an LS-6 fitted to the inner wing pylon. This is actually more instructive than it would appear. For the PLAAF, it only makes sense to invest in expensive and capable fighters if they can deliver commensurately effective weapons. While this may not seem entirely logical it does reflect a sense that says expensive aircraft deserve expensive weapons. Regardless of the argument, it does seem that the writing is on the wall. (PHOTO: Reuben F Johnson)
Unmanned Ground Vehicles
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John Mulberry In the first decade of the 21st Century there has been a huge explosion in a variety of advanced defence technologies often driven by the needs of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The huge wealth and variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now being used by western forces has largely been thanks to the imperatives of those conflicts. UAVs have, in fact, been headline grabbing with Predator and Global Hawk becoming household names.
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Chinese and Russian Precision Guided Weapons Programs
Reuben F. Johnson Since 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, both Russian and Chinese military theorists and the industry that supports their military establishments have been seeking to develop the type of precision-guided munitions (PGM) capability that US forces showed in this almost two-decades past conflict.
Russian Military Helicopter Industry
Xinjiang
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Reuben F Johnson Russia’s military helicopter industry displays its product line at the Moscow Air and Space Exposition (MAKS). This takes place once every two years just outside of the Russian capitol in Zhukovskiy. During the show a full-scale flight display takes places of each of the individual design bureaux (i.e. Sukhoi, Mikoyan), but since the Russian helicopter industry has been combined into one industrial amalgamation the helicopter show is a combination of all of the design bureaux and factory products into one display.
Stuart Notholt Xinjiang, China’s westernmost province, is one of the most remote and inhospitable territories of the world. It was a land that both fascinated and appalled Western ethnologists and explorers, such as the renowned early 20th century British explorer Sir Aurel Stein, who described the region as a “desolate wilderness, bearing everywhere the impress of death.” Today, Xinjiang is the focus of a variety of national security concerns for the Chinese state.
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recent commentary from the RSIS in Singapore opined, “war is unlikely in Asia”. The veracity of this comment relies in ones understanding of the word “War”. It could be suggested that while “war” is unlikely, “conflict” is not, but so what? It is indisputable that Asia is now more stable than perhaps it has ever been. In addition, the traditional sources of conflict are not what they were. Communism is now yesterday’s bad idea, with even China rejecting most of its basic tenets, and the spectre of Muslim extremism is a cause that only assures that its intended targets receive US aid and assistance. It is not impossible to suggest that China may even be willing to aid in the suppression of regional insurgencies that may prejudice its own interests. The need or want for some type of regional independence based on ethnic origin or culture, as seen in Southern Thailand, are, by their very nature, very localised.
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All too often there are wider interests at stake in hyping the idea of Asian conflict. Many have focussed on the entirely mythical “Asian submarine menace,” or some emerging pan-Asian Muslim terrorist organisation, as grounds to be very pessimistic. This is not to mention the entire industry that has grown up to promote the idea of a “Chinese Threat”. You can make good money writing bad things about China. The mere existence of papers citing the possible existence of security problems in Asia can be used to support a whole line of spurious reasoning for defence acquisitions. This is witnessed by the fact that Asia is home to some of the most nonsensical defence acquisitions on the planet. The rationale is basically to spend a defence budget or ponder the relevance of defence, in terms of a better use of resources. With the possible exception of Australia, every armed force in Asia today is a product of 1950’s or even 1960’s defence reasoning. Who is Singapore really expecting to fight and why? Why are Thailand’s armed forces so completely out of touch with the Strategic reality of the nation? The answer as ever is, the need for contingency, and that contingency is always based on going from a standing start. For Thailand, it is the Chinese invasion of next year and for Singapore, it might be the need to invade Malaysia, six weeks from now. The reality is that in both these examples, the armed forces concerned could never achieve any degree of military success, but yet they persist in being shaped for just that activity or something like it. One small aspect of Asia’s stability may be connected to the fact that a lot of its armed forces are less than relevant to the all out wars, we all fear! William F. Owen, Editor
Editor: William F. Owen E-mail: William@mediatransasia.com Publishing Office: Chairman: J.S. Uberoi Media Transasia Ltd, Room No. 1205-1206, Hollywood Centre 233, Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong. Tel: (852) 2815 9111, Fax: (852) 2815 1933 Operations Office: President: Egasith Chotpakditrakul Operations Director: Rohit K. Goel International Marketing Manager: Vishal Mehta Advertising Coordinator: Sukanya Prasert Production Manager: Kanda Thanakornwongskul Assistant Art Director: Subrata Jana Group Circulation Supervisor: Porames Chinwongs Media Transasia Thailand Ltd. 75/8, 14th Floor, Ocean Tower II, Soi Sukhumvit 19, Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoeynue, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand. Tel: 66 (0)-2204 2370, Fax: 66 (0)-2204 2390 -1
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Protected mobility Flavour of the month?
The Nexter ARAVIS (PHOTO: NEXTER)
Two European defence exhibitions in June, Eurosatory 2008 in Paris and the Defence Vehicle Dynamics exhibition in the UK, saw the unveiling of several new protected mobility platforms and the announcement of vehicle teaming arrangements. Influenced by the USled war on terrorism these vehicles can be grouped into two categories: the first category is generally intended to replace softskin or lightly armoured light utility vehicles in various combat support roles and the second category is intended to improve on the initial Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle designs acquired by the US Department of Defense over the past 18 months. by Ian Kemp 04
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ll of these new designs offer some level of protections against rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the chosen weapons of asymmetric opponents in Afghanistan and Iraq. These projects, almost all of them company funded, exemplify a growing awareness that if nations are to participate in ‘coalitions of the willing’ primacy must be given to force protection measures to reduce casualties which erode political support long before they erode military effectiveness.
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Germany Approaches German vehicle manufacturers Krauss-Maffei
Wegmann (KMW) and Rheinmetall Defence Systems announced on the eve of Eurosatory a teaming arrangement to develop a new Armoured Multi Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) in the 5 to 9 tonne weight class. The project is aimed at the German Army’s Geschützte Führungs- und Funktionsfahrzeuge (GFF) multipurpose armoured vehicle programme which is intended to deliver a complete range
While both standard versions of the AMPV 1 can be carried inside the Germany Army’s CH-53 after some preparation a 5.1 tonne version of the AMPV 1 is also planned that can be driven straight into the army’s heavy transport helicopter. of protected mobility vehicles in four different weight classes: the 5.3 tonne GFF 1, the 7.5 tonne GFF 2, the 12.5 tonne GFF 3 and the 25ton GFF 4. It is the Bundeswehr intention that no personnel will be deployed into a theatre of operations without protected mobility. According to the partners the AMPV family will ‘fully comply with user requirements’ for the GFF 1 (with an outstanding need for more than 300 vehicles) and GFF 2
intended primarily as a liaison vehicle while the 7.8 tonne, 4.9 metre AMPV 2 will provide a higher level of protection and carry a heavier payload. Both models will be developed in patrol vehicle configurations with an unprotected load platform in the rear section and equipment carrier configurations with the ‘safety cell’ extending fully to the rear. While both standard versions of the AMPV 1 can be carried inside the Germany Army’s CH-53 after some preparation a 5.1 tonne version of the AMPV 1 is also planned that can be driven straight into the army’s heavy transport helicopter. All versions of the AMPV family can be carried inside the C-160 light tactical transport aircraft. It is intended that all AMPV1 models will protect against a 50 kg IED detonated 5 metres from the vehicle while the AMPV 2 will protect against a 100 kg IED. All versions feature a ballistic glass windscreen and windows in the two doors on each side. The partners state that AMPV protection levels exceed the German Army’s current requirements for GFF 1 and 2. The AMPV family features a 200 Kw high torque
(842 vehicles) classes. While a mock-up was displayed in Paris the partners intend to complete the initial AMPV 1 prototype in the first quarter of next year so that the AMPV family will be ready to enter production by 2011. The 6.5 tonne, 4.7 metre long AMPV 1 is
3.2 litre diesel engine, full time all-wheel drive and automatic transmission. KMW and Italy’s IVECO Defence Vehicles announced at Eurosatory that they have teamed to develop the new GFF 4 vehicle family in the 18 to 25 tonne weight class. “We will develop a vehicle family that, due to its standardized and modular concept, may be adapted to each specific demand of our national as well as international customers,” declared Frank Haun, CEO and President of KMW and Pietro Borgo, head of IVECO’s business unit for
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military wheeled vehicles. The German manufacturer developed the vehicle, previously dubbed the Grizzly, for the heaviest portion of the GFF requirement and the 6 x 6 prototype is now being evaluated by Germany’s Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB) alongside prototypes of the Rheinmetall Wisent in 8 x 8 configuration. The BWB is expected to decide before the end of the year which design is best suited to meet the GFF 4 requirement for up to 700 vehicles. The KMW GFF4 is a modular design based on the Iveco Trakker 6 x 6 heavy duty truck chassis. A monocoque ‘safety cell’ immediately behind the front-mounted engine protects the commander and driver, and a specialised equipment stowage section for the air-conditioning system, an NBC defence system and a 20kW auxiliary power unit, and the rear section which can be used to accommodate either troops or cargo up to a maximum payload of 4 tonnes. The ‘safety cell’ protects against ballistic threats, shell splinters, mines and IEDs. The GFF 4 can achieve a top speed of 90 km/h and cover 700 km. With a gross vehicle weight of 25 tonnes the vehicle can be carried inside an Airbus Military A400M transport aircraft. The two partners will The GFF 6x6 (PHOTO: KMW)
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complete a 4 x 4 prototype later this year for evaluation to satisfy the Italian Army’s VTMX requirement. The army plans to use the VTM-X in a variety of combat support roles and may also acquire vehicles for use as artillery tractors. The 4 x 4 variant will have a 3-tonne payload and fill the niche between KMW’s Dingo 2 4 x 4 All-Protected Vehicle and the 6 x 6 GFF 4. In the future an 8 x 8 variant may also be developed to complete the GFF 4 family. At Eurosatory KMW presented the new Future Fennek Technology (GP-F_T) demon-
prototype
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strator based on the 4 x 4 Fennek Leichter Gepanzerter Spähwagen (Light Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicle) which the company developed to meet the needs of the Dutch and German armies for a new reconnaissance platform that would rely upon stealth to operate across the full spectrum of military operations. The Fennek has been deployed by both armies in Afghanistan in recent years. KMW intends to develop two basic models of the GP-F_T optimised for three to six crewmembers and specific operational roles. “With the development of the GP-F_T vehicle family we want to offer the Bundeswehr and later other international customers a new dimension in mobility, modularity and protective technology for their current deployments, taking the constantly changing deployment conditions into account,” said Frank Haun, KMW
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The BWB is expected to decide before the end of the year which design is best suited to meet the GFF 4 requirement for up to 700 vehicles.
A computer graphic of the AMPV
French Fashion
Chairman. Survivability is ‘characterised by the redundancy of vital components, such as independent drive trains for the front and rear axles’. The vehicle can be driven with one or both 150kW diesel engines and achieve a road speed of more than 100 km/h. The GPF_T is designed to carry enough stores to be self sufficient for a mission of up to five days.
France’s Nexter Systems unveiled in Paris its 12 tonne 4 x 4 Aravis vehicle prototype which has been developed with company funds to meet emerging requirements on the export and home markets for a multi-purpose vehicle with a high degree of protection. Nexter describes the protection level, using the company’s new Safepro armour technology, as ‘44-4’: STANAG 4569 Level 4 ballistic protec-
tion able to defeat 14.5 mm threats; Level 4 mine protection able to defeats 10 kg mines under the belly and wheels; and, all-round Level 4 protection against 155 mm artillery splinters. The Aravis can withstand the blast of an IED, equivalent to 50 kg of TNT, detonated at five metres from the vehicle. The vehicle design incorporates modular appliqué armour with an unspecified ‘antiblast device’, a V-shaped anti-mine plate and a spall liner within the crew citadel. Nexter claims that the protection of the Aravis “outclasses that of all existing 4 x 4 vehicles”. The Aravis is based on the Unimog U5000 truck chassis which Nexter selected both because of its high mobility on roads and across country, and because of the global
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The Fennek has been deployed by both armies in Afghanistan in recent years. availability of spare parts. A 218 hp Mercedes Benz 4 cylinder deisel OM 924 engine produces a top speed of 100 km/h and the vehicle carries enough fuel to cover 750 km. The design offers 9.5 cubic metres of internal volume, of which 8 cubic metres is under armour. A typical mission configuration would provide seats for a driver, commander and up to six passengers. Nexter has already developed mission kits to configure the Aravis as a command post and an ambulance. Video cameras provide 360 degree situational awareness and the vehicle can be fitted with a remote controlled weapon station armed with weapons up to 20 mm in calibre. The Aravis has been designed to be airlifted inside a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transport aircraft without prior preparation. Renault launched its new 6 x 6 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) design at Eurosatory; this mounts an armoured body with V-shaped hull developed by armour specialist Centigon on Renault’s Sherpa 5 truck chassis. The Renault MRAP can carry a 6.7 tonne payload and the company will offer the vehicle in 10 and 12 seat configurations. A 320 hp diesel engine achieves a maximum road speed of 90 km/h. Renault also unveiled the Sherpa 3A HI (High Intensity) addition to its range of Sherpa 3 4 x 4 high mobility vehicles. With a gross vehicle weight of 10.5 tonnes the vehicle can carry a payload of 1.5 tonnes including four or five crew members. A Renault 215 hp Euro 4/5 engine and automatic transmission provide a maximum road speed of 120 km/h. At Eurosatory both the MRAP and the Sherpa 3A HI were displayed with overhead weapon stations to further improve crew survivability. Austrian specialist vehicle manufacturer Achleitner displayed its new 7 tonne Survivor II 4 x 4 Protected Mission Vehicle (PMV), one of several contenders being considered by the Austrian Army to meet a new requirement for 150 mine-protected vehicles to equip forces deployed on international missions. Although the design does not feature a Vshaped hull the company claims that the Survivor II offers comparable mine and IED protection as US Category I MRAP vehicles as well as better off road mobility. Achleitner is
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Lockheed Martins AVA-1 demonstrator. (PHOTO: Ian Kemp)
Wildcat seen during trials in Israel. (PHOTO: Rafael)
The Renault 6x6 MRAP. (PHOTO: Ian Kemp)
proposing developing troop carrier, ambulance and other specialist variants.
Israel and the UK Israel’s Hatehof, a specialist vehicle designer and manufacturer, introduced two protected
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vehicles in Paris. The 4 x 4 Xtream is being offered in a 9.2 tonne Light Version and a 16 tonne Heavy Version both of which can be configured to carry between seven and nine personnel including the driver. The monocoque hull is made of a composite of ballistic steel and aluminium. The underside of both versions provides STANAG 4569 Level 2b + 3a
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The combat proven Fennek will become a common chassis for a whole family of vehicles (PHOTO: KMW)
mine protection. The Light Version provides ballistic protection up to STANAG Level 3 while the Heavier Version provides Level 4 protection and additional reactive armour can be fitted to increase protection against RPGs. Hatehof’s 16 tonne 4 x 4 Navigator, based on a Turkish BMC chassis, is designed to carry three crew members in the front of the vehicle and up to 12 soldiers seated face to face in the rear troop compartment who enter via a hydraulically-operated rear ramp. Hatehof states that both the Xtream and Navigator offer high off-road mobility and urban manoeuvrability. The Navigator is being offered for a Turkish Army requirement for a mine-protected troop carrier. IMI has developed the Wildcat, a vehicle based on the well proven Tatra trucks. A 4 x 4 design, it has similar performance characteristics to the US Stryker. It is designed to dismount a squad of 9 men, 6 of whom can use their weapons from under armour. The armour pack is scaleable from STANAG 4569 Level 3 up to and beyond Level 4, as well as counter RPG-7 reactive armour packs. It can also mount a remote weapons station and has been displayed with IRON-FIST active protection system. While not possessing the 8x8 mobility of Stryker, it is comparable in almost all other ways. Sponsored by the UK Ministry of Defence’s Defence Equipment and Support organisation Defence Vehicle Dynamics was staged at the Millbrook Proving Ground, north of London, on 25-26 June. A variety of new and upgraded vehicles being fielded by the UK armed forces including the Ridgeback (a derivative of the Force Protection Cougar 4 x 4 MRAP I vehicle procured under an urgent operational requirement for service in Afghanistan) and the Thales Bushmaster Infantry Mobility Vehicle developed for the Australian Army and recently bought for UK service. Lockheed Martin UK unveiled its 4 x 4 AVA-1 multi-role armoured vehicle. In January 2006 the company acquired a
Nexter claims that the protection of the Aravis “outclasses that of all existing 4 x 4 vehicles”.. technology house famous for its design of innovative cross-country vehicles. This helped Lockheed Martin engineers at the parent company’s facilities in Owego, New York to develop the Light Weight Prime Mover, Future Tactical Truck System and more recently Lockheed Martin’s prototype for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). In parallel engineers in the UK developed the Adaptive Vehicle Architecture (AVA) with the first result being the AVA-1 demonstrator. The move is part of the company’s drive The Renault Sherpa (PHOTO: Ian Kemp)
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on both sides of the Atlantic to enter the armoured vehicle market as exemplified by its participation in the multi-billion dollar US JLTV programme. The AVA concept involves three distinct components – the chassis, the cab and the mission module. This modular approach allows the AVA to be configured in 4 x 4 and 6 x 6 variants for different roles including patrol vehicles, troop carriers and flatbeds with a 9-tonne payload capacity. The company believes the AVA has the potential to meet ‘several’ emerging UK requirements. The 12 tonne AVA-1 is six metres long and features a modified V-shaped hull. “This vehicle has superb on and off-road capability, has a minimal turning circle and a sprint speed in excess of 50 mph as well as MRAP standards of protection,” said Scott Lustig, director for Land Vehicle Systems. Engineers spoke extensively with troops with operational experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and one result is a cab, or cockpit, design that relies upon carefully positioned and angled ballistic glass windows to provide maximum situational awareness. Lockheed Martin UK officials believe the AVA-1 is ahead of the market. Recent industry developments demonstrate that it will be a A MR fiercely competitive market.
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A Model Army? UGV Developments In the first decade of the 21st Century there has been a huge explosion in a variety of advanced defence technologies often driven by the needs of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The huge wealth and variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now being used by western forces has largely been thanks to the imperatives of those conflicts. UAVs have, in fact, been headlining grabbing with Predator and Global Hawk becoming household names.
FoxBot utilises an extendable sensor pack. This is a comparatively rare approach (PHOTO: Rheinmetall)
by John Mulberry
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t is no surprise that UAVs have captured the imagination of the general public and the military, but they have overshadowed a quieter revolution in unmanned systems on the ground. The explosion in UAV use has also been accompanied by similarly rapid development of unmanned ground vehicle technologies. In 2003 US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan had some 160 UGVs deployed, mainly larger Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) robots, by 2006 that number had crept up to 4,000 with another 1,000 at least expected to be added this year. Although the primary role in the field for military UGVs continues to be EOD/IED missions there is an increasing move towards other reconnaissance missions and even to arming systems. As the technologies have developed militaries in the Asian region have begun to take note of the potential possibilities. Technologically advanced forces, such as Australia, Japan and Singapore, all have on going UGV projects seeing the potential of such systems to augment their limited human capital. However, other countries are also eyeing the potential of such systems, especially as companies continue to drive down the costs of what are largely seen as expendable assets.
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The UK’s Wheelbarrow systems, designed to deal with the exigencies of the Northern Ireland conflict, is the forerunner to the current generations of EOD robots. The smaller systems (often designed to be able to fit in to inaccessible areas) can be used as a reconnaissance tool to check vehicles and buildings. If a threat is detected a heavier UGV teleoperated and armed with a manipulator or disruptor can be brought in to position to destroy or trigger an IED safely. The trouble with using the systems in this way is that by removing the operator from danger you put the system in danger of being destroyed. That saves lives, but until recently has come at a major cost, especially for small, poor armed forces. The larger EOD UGVs can run in to the $100,000s, which is no small investment. That is even before the costs of training and logistics. It is no surprise, therefore, that until
recently such systems have been few and far between in the Asian region. However, with a number of local forces facing increased insurgency activity, with groups having learnt many new techniques from the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a new desire to build or procure such systems. For many countries, including larger nations such as Australia, a major factor in building such systems will be cost. Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) through its association with the US Joint IED Defeat Organization is looking at building low cost EOD robots. The country’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation is spearheading developments looking at modularity and low cost COTS parts to build inexpensive EOD robots that are truly disposable.
Electronic eyes Outside of the specialised EOD role UGVs were, until recently, not seen as a practical tool. However, again experience from Iraq and Afghanistan has shown that UGVs can be a viable solution in a range of reconnaissance roles. Many of the UGVs currently being used by US forces in the two countries are not in the hands only of EOD specialists.
Early origins UGVs are not new to military forces. Teleoperated EOD robots have been part of the toolkit of EOD units for several decades. The UK’s Wheelbarrow systems, designed to deal with the exigencies of the Northern Ireland conflict, is the forerunner to the current generations of EOD robots. In addition, the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) adopted by the British Army (including the use of smaller remote controlled reconnaissance UGV in conjunction with a larger teleoperated manipulator equipped EOD robot) have both informed the tactics of other armed forces and the development of new systems. In the EOD role UGV’s give the operator three critical stand-off capabilities: reconnaissance; manipulation; and disruption. Critically, such systems allow EOD specialists to remain out of harms way as they attempt to diffuse bombs or IEDs. MAARS with Weapon – Company’s like Foster-Miller are beginning to experiment with weaponsing UGVs.
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In particular, iRobots packbot, which as the name suggests is small enough to be carried individually by a soldier, has been used in a variety of ways. As well as allowing soldiers to check for IEDs themselves from a distance the system has also been used to reconnoitre buildings, tunnels and caves among other dangerous areas. By the end of 2007 the company had delivered 1,200 of the 50 lbs Packbot MTRS robots to the US military. The company has now updated the system and is touting the Packbot 510 system, which has increased torque, greater speed and a new hand controller. In December last year, the company announced that it had been awarded a $268 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract by the US Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation for the 510 system under the name of the xBot system. The xBot contract is for the delivery of at least a further 3,000 UGVs, spare parts, training and repair services over five years. The contract further broadens the delivery of UGVs to the US Army’s infantry units allowing them to enhance the capabilities in a number of critical areas including EOD. ‘Robots give our troops the distinct advantage of completing critical missions at a safe distance,’ according to the president of iRobot Government and Industrial Robots, Joe Dyer. The xBot contract will give the US Army a further taste for such systems, but fortunately the Boeing/SAIC team in charge of the
Guardium robot conducts patrol trial at Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel (PHOTO: Elbit Systems)
army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) project are already scoping out the next generation of small UGVs that will be incorporated in to the system. The SUGV has also been developed by iRobot and will provide (FCS) equipped forces with a ‘manpackable’ UGV capability. The SUGV, which incorporates a number of improvements over the company’s existing systems, is already undergoing testing with the army’s Army Evaluation Task Force (AETF) at Fort Bliss, Texas as it develops the TTPs for the system. Included among the probable developments will be a dedicated ‘robot’ non commissioned officer charged with the use and exploitation of the system. At recent trials attended by the media the AETF demonstrated how the system could be used to improve house clearing drills. The US Army is the first to embrace the use of such small systems for infantry operations to such a large degree, but they are unlikely to be the last. In Singapore, the armed forces have dedicated an army battalion to experimenting with various unmanned
On the limit of mobility? BAE’s Gladiator. Note the smoke projectors (PHOTO: BAE Systems)
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systems including both micro UAVs and small UGVs. Singapore Technologies Engineering and the Defence Science & Technology Agency have been working with the armed forces in the evaluation process. In 2006 Singapore revealed some of the elements that make up their trials work. Like many other armed forces Singapore see UGVs as being able to deliver capability to undertake the ‘dull, dirty and dangerous’ missions. To select technologies to fulfil such roles, the Singaporeans are testing a number of different systems. Officials said that the army had deployed a small UGV with the trials battalion. In the army’s transformation, it is particularly interested in enhancements that will increase the army’s effectiveness in urban terrain. As a result the focus of activity is on portable UGVs that can be used to support the individual soldier or formation.
Bigger and better However, reconnaissance UGVs are not necessarily only small systems. In May, G-NIUS, an IAI/Elbit Systems joint venture (JV) announced that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had received its first trial system of the Guardium patrol UGV. Sponsored by Mafat, Israel’s defence Research & Development Branch, the vehicle that has been jointly developed by the two companies is scheduled to take part in security missions along the country’s borders. Before teaming up Elbit and IAI both developed different prototype UGVs. However, restrictions on requirements and corporate realisation of the challenges led the two companies to establish G-NIUS, as an equally owned JV. The vehicle developed by the by G-NIUS is, according to the company, an advanced third generation UGV, with technological features based on the vast experience in UGV development acquired by G-NIUS' parent companies. The Guardium is based on a Tomcar platform, a proven off-road, manoeuvrable
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Outside of the specialised EOD role UGVs were, until recently, not seen as a practical tool.
The Talon UGV has seen extensive service in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
manned vehicle for rough terrain and challenging topography. The unmanned version features autonomous operation allowing for precise steering across pre-defined routes programmed in its mission profile. Offering modular selection of payloads,
Guardium can be effectively utilised in a variety of force protection and homeland security applications. Monitoring the vehicle operation through the GUARDIUM command and control station, the vehicle operator can adjust its mission’s parameters, in the field and in realtime, so as to adapt the UGV performance to changing conditions. In earlier versions the companies also retained the capability for a driver to intervene in the vehicle or to set a dedicated patrol route. Israel is not the only country to be working on larger UGVs. Again the US is heavily involved in a number of areas. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) has been instrumental in driving forward UGV technology through its series of Grand Challenge events. Held every two years the DARPA Grand Challenge pushes
the state of the art in UGV development. In the first challenge in 2004 the aim was to navigate a 150km stretch of emptiness in the Mojave Desert, something that no team was able to do at the time. However, by the last event the competition had evolved in to the Urban Challenge and asked teams to develop UGVs capable of navigating the complexities of an urban environment. So in December 2007 teams from across the US converged on Victorville, California to show what they could do. The course was a 96 km urban route that had to be completed in less than six hours. Along the way, the rules included obeying all traffic regulations while negotiating with other traffic and obstacles and merging into traffic. The $2 million winner was Tartan Racing, a joint effort by Carnegie Mellon University and General Motors, with their Boss vehicle. In Australia, DSTO also been working on developing larger UGVs capable of following complicated routes for a variety of missions such as unmanned logistics. In 2005 DSTO signed a three year contract with the University of Sydney's Australian Centre for
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Field Robotics (ACFR) to form a Centre of Expertise in Defence Autonomous and Uninhabited Vehicle Systems. During its period of operation the COE has focused on the development and application of unmanned vehicle systems across all three domains. Specifically, looking at UGV the COE set up a programme to establish a UGV experimentation infrastructure within DSTO and the development of a science and technology ‘roadmap’ for UGVs to help the defence ministry identify critical systems requirements, major technology areas, and main drivers for Australian Defence Force UGVs.
Taking the load But in terms of large UGVs for defence applications the major programme of record is the US FCS programme. The large element of the UGV part of the project, which as mentioned above also includes the SUGV, is the Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (MULE) UGV. The UGV is being developed for the Boeing/SAIC team by Lockheed Martin and is in many respects one of the most revolutionary parts of the project.
‘Robots give our troops the distinct advantage of completing critical missions at a safe distance,’ To facilitate development of the MULE the company has built a $1 million robotics test centre where it is putting the MULE Engineering Evaluation Unit (EEU) through its paces. The MULE is a large six wheeled vehicle that in its main role will carry the equipment of dismounted platoons. As such it will need to go where they do and has been designed to get over or around any major barriers. According to Don Nimblett, Lockheed Martin’s manager, business development for the system, throughout the trials of the UGV it has been pretty unstoppable transversing ditches and climbing barriers with its articulated suspension. However, a number of challenges remain. Anyone who has seen the mock-up of the logistics MULE can see some of the difficulties of the UGV. At the
BAE Systems Australia is experimenting with a Supacat converted to operate autonomously. (PHOTO: BAE Systems)
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moment equipment on the back of the system is secured with a cargo net – hardly proof against theft or more importantly covert IED emplacement. Nor have engineers fully solved the issues of using the UGV in cluttered urban environments. What should the vehicle do when faced with operating in areas also cluttered with non-combatants that it can not ride rough shod over. MULE is firmly a part of the US FCS project, but to address what it believes to be a burgeoning open market for larger UGVs Lockheed Martin has also used its expertise to build the Squad Mission Support System (SMSS). The UGV is somewhat smaller than MULE and is targeted at the infantry and special operations communities. Key target markets are the US Special Operations Command and US Marine corps, but the company is also looking towards the export market. It is believed to have had discussions with a number of countries in Asia about potentially picking up the technology, but is yet to find a firm customer. Much of the focus of UGV development to date has been on EOD, reconnaissance and logistics roles. However, just as UAV systems have moved from being just sensor platforms to also being shooters so has consideration
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turned to the potential arming of UGVs. In fact, the basic MULE chassis for FCS will also fulfil the role of being the basis of the other large UGV in the programme, the Armed Robotic Vehicle (ARV). The final shape of the ARV is yet to be set in concrete, but designs for the system include equipping the vehicle variously with large-calibre machine guns, grenade launchers, and potentially mortars. However, it is not only large robotic fighting vehicles that are being developed. Both iRobot and its competitor Foster-Miller have begun development of armed variants of their UGVs. Foster-Miller has already fielded one system for trials. The UGV, dubbed Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Direct-action System (SWORDS), was equipped with a 5.56 mm M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, and was trialled for reconnaissance and force
Like many other armed forces Singapore see UGVs as being able to deliver capability to undertake the ‘dull, dirty and dangerous’ missions. protection roles by the US. Feedback from in theatre trials has focused Foster-Miller’s next generation armed UGV. The Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS) was unveiled late last year. The heavier UGV is capable of carrying the more powerful 7.62 mm M240B medium machine gun or can be re-rolled with a manipulator arm for EOD missions. Both the more powerful weapon and the modularity are of particular interest to the military. Countries in Asia have not been left behind in the rush towards arming UGVs. Behind closed doors there are believed to be a UGVS are being used for a variety of tasks including convoy protection.
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number of programmes ongoing. Pictures have leaked on to the internet of a Chinese UGV equipped with an assault rifle. Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are all believed to have similar aspirations.
The right mix With so much utility it is no wonder that armed forces in Asia are taking a close look at the UGV technology being developed both at home and beyond. Military UGVs are no longer just synonymous with EOD robots. UGVs are growing in to a variety of roles including reconnaissance, logistics, and combat operations. However, there is some way before many of these technologies are truly fieldable. The US has been fortunate in that it has been able to throw money at systems such as the Packbot. Asian armies will have to be more selective, but for cash-strapped and personnel starved forces UGVs may in the future be real force multipliers. Much will depend on companies being able to drive down costs and being able to offer true modularity and scalability. There are products already on the market from the likes of iRobot, which has an active marketing campaign in the region, but the real question will be whether indigenous industry will also be able to provide real, viable AMR solutions.
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Bombs on Target Chinese and Russian Precision Guided Weapons Programmes
The LS-6 demonstrates a conceptual likeness to many western PGMs (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
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Since 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, both Russian and Chinese military theorists and the industry that supports their military establishments have been seeking to develop the type of precision-guided munitions (PGM) capability that US forces showed in this almost two-decades past conflict. What could be described as a redoubled effort to address this deficiency in the arsenals of both countries began in the1990s because of what the US forces demonstrated could be done with this class of weaponry. by Reuben F. Johnson ASIAN MILITARY REVIEW
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ven though PGM amounted to slightly more than seven percent of all of the munitions dropped during the war “Desert Storm – and how overwhelmingly superior the US forces performed against the Iraqis - was a wake-up call to the Russians for sure,” said one senior US Government Russian military analyst. “It validated all of the predictions in the 1980s by [Marshal Nikolai] Ogarkov about how the superior technology demonstrated by PGM made much of the military doctrine upon which the Soviet armed forces based their organisation and plans obsolete.” This
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prompted increased calls by Soviet military policy makers to embark on a crash programme to equip their military with more “smart” weapons. The Chinese military was similarly alarmed at the speed of the US victory over the Iraqis because its military in many areas were at similar technology levels to Baghdad’s. This – according to some analysts - prompted a push for a full-scale modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But, just pointing at industry and saying “give me some PGM and give it to me fast” is not enough. Creating the type of platforms and forces that can effectively employ PGM is more complicated than the single act of designing smart munitions.
More Than Just Smart Bombs In order to have an effective PGM element in the air force of any country requires several critical elements other than just being able to build the weapons themselves: The technology levels within industry to support development of current-generation seeker heads of all types: laser-guided, television (TV) guided, passive antiradiation, GPS/GLONASS-guided,
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The Chinese military was similarly alarmed at the speed of the US victory over the Iraqis because its military in many areas were at similar technology levels to Baghdad’s
datalink or other navigational aids. Reliable and accurate sensors that can also be linked to a targeting pod that represents equally mature technology. Current-generation, multi-colour, multifunction displays (MFD) that have moving-map, cursor-on-target, blue force tracking, etc. capability. This may seem like overkill or a frivolous matter, but present day use of PGM by western military aircraft shows that in order to receive the full benefit of the fidelity provided by the latest model targeting pods – like the Lockheed Martin Sniper, Raytheon AT-FLIR, Rafael/Northrop Grumman Litening and the Thales Damacles - an aircraft requires these state-of-the-art displays. A cockpit that is equipped with “steam gauge” displays and previous-generation monochrome MFDs will not be able to utilise the fullspectrum fidelity available in a targeting pod and other sensors. The ability to utilise some sort of global positioning system, such as GPS, and to have a back-up network available in the event of hostilities in which the US are either involved or wish to hinder the military operations of one or more of the military establishments by shutting down the openly available civilian mode for the sys-
Region KAB-1500Kr (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
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tem and switching it to an encryption key that only the US military and other agencies may access. Examples of alternative systems are: the as of yet incomplete GLONASS system from Russia, the currently in development European Galileo positioning system, China’s proposed COMPASS system, and India’s IRNSS. Once these alternative systems are up and running design changes will be made to integrate them into menu of guidance modes available to designers of these weapons. Currently, Russian and Chinese weapons are dual mode - GPS or GLONASS-guided – but the uncertainty of how long GPS would be available to them in any type of conflict (most particularly any military activity in the Taiwan Straits) and the lower level of precision that GLONASS offers is one of the drivers behind the Chinese COMPASS system, which is not due to come on-line until after 2012.
Russian PGM The design bureaux and other defence industrial enterprises in Russia have made little progress in developing the type of PGM that Desert Storm was supposed to have accelerated the development of. What has been developed has been more in the way of precision-guided air-to surface missiles that are to be launched at longer ranges. Surprisingly very little has been developed by Russia for the traditional close air support (CAS) role and there is very little deployment of these weapons within the Russian armed forces themselves. The nonmissile weapons/guided bombs that have been seen seem to be in the same vein as so many other Russian programmes that have been seen in the 1990s and into this decade. That is, some export customer pays for development of a weapon system and it is then put into production and sold for export in substantial numbers. Then the economies of scale created by those foreign customer sales are used to supply those same weapons to the Russian military. Another traditional Russian design trend in air-launched weapons has been continued in that these weapons have been developed in multiple configurations. The same basic airframe or bomb body is used, but then produced with one of several different types of seeker heads and guidance systems installed on the same weapon. Russian designers have employed this type of switchable, modular approach in order
ASIAN MILITARY REVIEW
Raduga Kh-38 missile displayed openly for the first time at MAKS 2007 (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
to create this “same weapon/different seekers” inventory for decades. The basic rationale behind this concept is that by utilising multiple types of seekers on the same weapon provides advantages to the military customer. One is that only one basic weapon shape must be cleared for the air frame (flight testing and integration of a weapon onto an aircraft being an expensive and lengthy process), but once it is cleared the aircraft – by virtue of the many choices of seeker heads – can be configured for a fullspread of different missions. The other advantage to this approach is that by launching two or more of the same weapon but with different seeker heads, countermeasures enacted by the enemy against one weapon will be ineffective against the other. (This has been a time-honoured design philosophy with air-to-air missile designers in Russia, but it is less attractive in the PGM world. Most western PGM manufacturers advertise their munitions as “one-bomb, one target” products, so the prospect of dropping two bombs – and possibly wasting one of the two – each time the aircraft launches an attack is not the best advertisement in a world where fighter manufacturers worry about how to add more hardpoints onto an aeroplane and how to maximise the use of each one.) Examples of the precision-guided airlaunched weapons are the Kh-29, Kh-59 and Kh-38, the latter being a new system that was revealed to be a real live programme (and not just drawings) for the first time at the
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Currently, Russian and Chinese weapons are dual mode - GPS or GLONASSguided
Moscow Aviation and Space Exposition (MAKS) air show last year. At the Berlin ILA air show in at the end of May Russia’s RSK-MiG released a new brochure for the MiG-35 fighter aircraft that listed an entire set of new weapons for the modernised version of the MiG-29. An RSK-MiG official told Asian Military Review that “these weapons have just recently been cleared for export and this is why the brochure has been updated.” The major driver for this clearing of a whole new class of precision-guided missiles was that Indian industry were the major strategic partner for the ILA show this year. MiG were anxious to show how much their new fighter could do as part of their competition for the Indian Air Force’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender.
The list of weapons now offered for export the MiG-35 from Russian weapons manufacturers are: As one can see, there are a limited number of weapons that fall into the category of a GPS system-guided weapon, like the US GBU-31/32/28 JDAM. GLONASS, as mentioned above, is still not a complete system and its precision is less than that of the US GPS system and most of the air combat doctrine sees a TV-guided weapon as more reliable with greater accuracy. Most of the weapons above also require a two-man air crew as well, as all but the newest Russian fighters do not have the automation in the cockpit that would enable a single-pilot to handle flying the aeroplane and dropping ordnance at the same time. The first appearance of any weaponry in the class of a JDAM-type system was Region’s exhibition of the first designs of GPS/GLONASS-guided bombs at MAKS in 2003. Thus far there are no concrete Russian
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examples of a JDAM-ER class glide-bomb type weapon with the exception of drawings that have been shown by the Basalt design bureau. Russian military thinking still seems to want to depend on large missiles with long-range rocket motor rather than to try and increase the use of long-range, unpowered, guided bombs. The design and implementation of these type of weapons have also been impeded by two other factors. One is that the Russian targeting pod, the SAPSAN that is produced by the Ural Optica-Mechanical Plant (UOMZ) has still not been sold to any export clients – according to the firm’s representatives – and the pod is only now almost ready to enter into series production. Without this type of a system on-board a fighter it is difficult to make full use of laser-guided and other PGM. The other problem is that almost no aircraft in Russian inventory or in service abroad are equipped with state-of-the-art glass cockpits that have become almost a necessity for effective employment of PGM. The Sukhoi Su-30MKI, which is in service with India and uses non-Russian make dis-
An un-identified Chinese “Paveway” look-alike. (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
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There is very little deployment of these weapons within the Russian armed forces themselves plays (because there were no Russian displays available at the time that met their requirements) is one of the very few. The MiG-35 and the Su-35 depend on export orders or they may remain a few prototypes.
Weapon System
Seeker/Guidance
Designer/Manufacturer
Kh-38MAE
Active homing
Zvezda-Strela
Kh-38MLE
Laser
Zvezda-Strela
Kh-38MTE
TV-guided
Zvezda-Strela
Kh-38MKE
TV-guided with datalink or
Zvezda-Strela
SatNav correlation Kh-59MK/MK2
Radar homing
Raduga
Kh-59M2E
TV-guided
Raduga
3M-14AE
Radar homing
Novator
3M-54AE1
Radar homing
Novator
KAB-1500Kr
TV-guided correlation homing+
Region
Chinese PGM
KAB-1500LG
Laser-guided (stabilised seeker)
Region
Chinese efforts at designing PGM have been ahead of Russia’s for some time for two basic reasons. One is that they have purchased almost all of the weaponry that they could from Russia and have made some substantial efforts to mimic and/or improve what they were able to acquire. Unlike Russia, China started earlier and put more effort into developing PGM – and the necessary associated systems and technologies. The other reason is that Chinese designers have continued on with their own indigenous programmes, sometimes borrowing from other designs outside of China, but definitely trying to develop a Chinesedesigned solution to this modern-day air warfare requirement. As with their efforts in working with Russian technology, the Chinese started these efforts earlier than their Russian comrades. Last year at Air Show China in Zhuhai Chinese industry exhibited several types of PGM from two different companies. These were the Luoyang Optical-Electronic Technology Development Centre (LOEC)
KAB-500Kr-E
TV-guided correlation homing
Region
KAB-500OD*
TV-guided correlation homing
Region
KAB-500LG
Laser guided (stabilised seeker)
Region
KAB-500S-E
GPS/GLONAAS-guided
Region
The FT-1 has an unmistakable JDAM lineage. (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
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KAB-250S-E
GPS/GLONASS-guided
Region
KAB-250L
Laser-guided
Region
+ - The Russian definition of correlation homing in this instance means that the weapon locks onto target before it is released from the aircraft and using imagery loaded into the TV-seeker’s memory before mission launch. * - The designator “OD” indicates that this a fuel-air explosive (FAE) weapon. with the Leishi (LS)-6 extended-range glide bomb and the (Leiting) LT-2 laser-guided bomb. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) were also showing their PGM designs - two conventional, JDAM-type bombs, the Fei Teng (FT)-1 and FT-3. The LT-2 has been in service with the Chinese air force “for more than three years,” according to a LOEC representative at Zhuhai. The 500kg weapon resembles the Region KAB-series. LOEC would not give specific performance numbers, but alluded that the LT-2 has a range of up to 20 km from high altitude, with an average accuracy/CEP of about 2 metres. The LS-6 was developed as a follow-on system to the LT-2 and LOEC state that they plan a series of weapons based on this design. Allegedly “about a dozen” launch tests of the LS-6 precision bomb kit were carried out using a Shenyang J-8IIM again as the test aircraft. The program started in 2003, with testing now complete. Chengdu J-10 and FC-1/JF-17 have both had this weapon integrated to their air frames. The guidance for the LS-6 is provided by an inertial package coupled with satellite navigation. LOEC claim that the weapons family will be capable of using three systems
ASIAN MILITARY REVIEW
- U.S. GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and China's own Beidou system that is service now regionally until COMPASS comes online. The 500kg LS-6 has a maximum launch range of 60 km. from medium altitude. A 1,000kg version is in the works (the first new member of the LS-6 “family”), although this will require a larger wing to be designed for the bomb and a re-designed pylon. A 250kg variant is also being developed, as is the possibility of using a laser seeker on this weapon in place of the GPS/GLONASS guidance package. The FT-1 most closely resembles the US JDAM. Development on the FT-1 began in 2001 and tests have been carried out from a Xian JH-7. The range of the FT-1 is listed as up to 18 km., depending on the release altitude and aircraft speed, with an accuracy of “30 metres, or less,” according to CALT representatives. Chinese designers have also been developing a laser targeting pod so that they could effectively employ some of these weapons. The first photos appeared in June 2005 on Chinese internet sites that showed two new Chinese targeting pods. One of the two closely resembles the SAPSAN, but some UMOZ deny that they were involved in the development of this pod, while others
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The other advantage to this approach is that by launching two or more of the same weapon but with different seeker heads, countermeasures enacted by the enemy against one weapon will be ineffective against the other.. The SAPSAN-E thermal imaging and targeting pod. (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
say that they did. UMOZ does admit that there are aspects of the pod that closely resemble the SAPSAN, but at the same time UOMZ does not want to “give away the store.” China, which purchased a large number of Su-30MKK/MK2 aircraft, is one of the markets where UOMZ hopes that it can sell the SAPSAN. Region designers are also very knowledgeable about the laser and optical guided
bombs shown by Chinese industry, but they also state that they had little to no involvement in the LOEC programmes or the development of the Sicong Group’s 500kg laserguided seeker. Again, this runs counter to Region’s interests, which are to sell as many of their products as possible to the Chinese, which is one of the few large markets really potentially available to them. Overall, Chinese efforts have been more
aggressive – or perhaps more adequately funded – than Russian programs, but much of what they do have to show appears to be at least Russian-inspired or borrowed from some other nation’s design. What does appear to be clear, however, is that while Russian work on PGM may well remain a behind the rest of the world (and there is no sense of urgency in Russian industry to address that imbalance), Chinese designers are keener to close the gap. Five years from now they may be much closer to the state-of-the-art than many believe is possiAMR ble today.
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Russia’s Military Helicopter Industry:
Modernisation And Next-Generation
The all-black Ka-50 demonstrator. (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
Russia’s military helicopter industry displays its product line at the Moscow Air and Space Exposition (MAKS). This takes place once every two years just outside of the Russian capitol in Zhukovskiy. During the show a fullscale flight display takes places of each of the individual design bureaux (i.e. Sukhoi, Mikoyan), but since the Russian helicopter industry has been combined into one industrial amalgamation the helicopter show is a combination of all of the design bureaux and factory products into one display. by Reuben F. Johnson
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here is an old Russian saying that at a banquet “he who pays the money gets to decide what kind of music is played,” and this is certainly the manner in which the military helicopter industry in Russia has developed, in that the vast majority of sales are now for export and of well established and existing types. What is increasingly clear is that the industry and its varied customers have decidedly different priorities and objectives. The helicopter makers have proposals for new projects and upgrades that make very logical sense for all of their customers – both domestic and foreign - but their domestic customer has other ideas and the final outcome is one in which the foreign and domestic order books are decidedly different. Since there is almost no overlap between the several domestic customers in terms of their orders and requirements and those of their export customers, some of the domestic customers for Russia’s industry have gone off on their own to not only set their own requirements, but also make their own modifications.
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The Ka50 in flight
export orders. Fighter aeroplanes, air defence systems, tactical missiles, armoured vehicles, and other products of the Russian defence industrial complex were at peak demand during this time because some nations’ militaries needed an across-the-board modernisation (i.e. India) and others that were looking for large-scale industrial cooperation in order to elevate the technology level in their own industry (i.e. China). Programmes like the Mil-28N, originally developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, are only now being procured by the Russian military. It is literally the singular example of a new type model being introduced into service since the final years of the Gorbachev Soviet period. Three basic activities have kept the helicopter sector active. One is that many of the export customers that had already been using Russian helicopters, particularly the transport models like the Mil-8 have ordered them in fairly steady numbers. These are nothing like the orders that have been placed for Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft, for exam-
Surviving Lean Years The biblical story about Joseph warning of “seven fat years followed by seven lean ones” would seem to be an appropriate metaphor for Russia’s helicopter designers and builders, except since the fall of the USSR there have been no fat years for them at all and nothing but lean ones. During the economic collapse of the 1990s, large parts of Russia’s defence industry managed to survive on a bevy of
What is interesting, however, is the cast of those paying the money, what some of their objectives are and how the Russian industry seem to be at odds with their domestic customers.
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ple, but it is a reliable platform that will remain in service for many years. As of today, something in the neighbourhood of 80 per cent of all military helicopter production is now for export customers. (In 2006, Oboronprom, a division of the Russian state arms export monopoly, Rosoboronexport, revealed that 95% of the revenues from sales of helicopters resulted from exports abroad, while only 5% came from domestic sales to both civilian and military end-users in Russia itself.) Right now there are more Mil-8 models (and its follow-derivative, the Mil-17) in operation with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) – some 250 units – than there are in use in Russia itself. Over 50 countries have one or both of these helicopters in the fleets of their armed forces. A second helping hand to the helicopter industry is that although the Russian military has yet to procure any of the upgrade packages for older model Russian helicopters, there are several export customers that have purchased upgrades, which has kept several models up to modern technology levels. This in turn has helped to maintain some cadre of an engineering workforce in place. Thirdly is the Russian military procurement of the Mil-28N. Currently, about 100 of these models are on order and 5 units have thus far been delivered to the former Army aviation training centre (now the Russian air force helicopter training centre) at Torzhok in the Tver region. The plan now is to train two squadrons of instructors who will become the cadre for integration of this model into operational service with the Russian armed forces.
New Products And Innovations Russian industry have been able to keep the Mil-28N design current by introducing new-technology sensors, new cockpit designs and other innovations to keep the on-board configuration of the Mil-28N as close to the state-of-the-art as possible. Analysts of the Russian helicopter industry see that the Mi-28 will remain the primary attack helicopter for the Russian armed forces, as well as for export customers, because it does not push into any new, technically risky design concepts of helicopter aerodynamics. The Kamov
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Ka-50 is in some respects a better solution in that its two counter-rotating main rotors eliminate one of the chief problems with helicopter combat survivability. By eliminating the tail rotor the chief source of combat losses is also removed. A large number of helicopters are shot down by ground fire directed at the tail rotor or tail rotor drive shaft (as in the Blackhawk Down scenario), but this advantage is muted by some of the Ka-50’s more complex aerodynamics. Back in the last years of the Cold War the Ka-50 was considered a better choice for the Russian Army, a drastic change in procurement patterns because the ground forces had traditionally purchased their helicopters from Mil and the Russian Navy from Kamov. The elimination of the tail rotor by the Kamov, dual-main rotor design reduces the footprint of the helicopter on the ship, which was its attraction to the naval community, but the counterrotating dual rotor design is also lift-generating and the torque that is required to power a tail rotor in a conventional helicopter is freed up to power the main rotors. The virtue of this design characteristic was that the Ka-50 could climb higher and faster than any other helicopter, which considered a benefit to those putting was together war plans for a Warsaw Pact v. NATO scenario in central Europe. This was thought to be a tactical advantage, as the Soviet war planners envisioned heli-
Future concept might carry two high-calibre machine-guns and could also carry two anti-ship or anti-radiation/anti-SAM missiles
During the economic collapse of the 1990s, large parts of Russia’s defence industry managed to survive on a bevy of export orders. copter-to-helicopter air-to-air dogfights. The ability to get above one’s adversary could be a key factor in those engagements. However, the Cold War went away, helicopters became associated with the traditional role of close air support and then early in the development of the Ka-50 the Russians lost a senior helicopter officers, when the counter-rotating rotors collided with each other as he was putting the helicopter through a series of manoeuvres. The Ka-50 can also turn at low or almost no speed, but it takes longer for it to start and stop these same turns. A conventional hel-
The Ansat is aimed at the Asia, Africa and Latin-America markets (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
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icopter with a tail rotor aircraft can generate the thrust to start or stop faster, which is a manoeuvring advantage that the Kamov does not have. Others still see the Ka-50 as a perfect choice for any military as close air support aircraft, as it is built for battlefield survivability and can endure a significant pounding from ground fire. Its design also allows it to be rearmed and refueled close to the front lines from mobile support vehicles and does not have to remain tethered to a military airfield to maintain a high tempo of operations. Mil have also developed two other notable product lines. One is a modernised version of the longstanding Mil-24 Hind helicopter, which is now being offered to Venezuela and other foreign customers in one of three variants. The Mil-35, which can be used for close air support, combination gunship and troop transport helicopter, can also act as a reconnaissance platform. The Mil-35P is designed for even more robust close air support, with the standard 12.7mm gun being replaced with a pair of 30mm cannons. The Mil-35M is the most advanced version yet, combining a number of new on-board sensors that give it all-weather capability. At the same time there are other programmes – some of them being undertaken without Russian participation for the NATO standardisation of the Mi-24/35s that are in service in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria. In Russia, Mil and its associated manufacturing plants have modified this design type with a number of weight saving features. These include fixed landing gear, and a shortening of the stub wings. The avionics suite has been modified by the installation of Russian made thermal imaging systems
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cockpit has two Russian industry have been new colour multifunction displays able to keep the Mil-28N (MFD) that can design current by introducshow flight data, ing new-technology senmoving maps and thermal or TV sors, new cockpit designs imaging. TACAN and other innovations to and GPS systems keep the on-board configuare used for navigation. The sensor ration of the Mil-28N as suite includes the close to the state-of-the-art Ural Opticalas possible Mechanical Factory (UOMZ_ gyro-stabilised GOES 342 countries, so there is a wide modernisation sensor mounted market now open to both Russia and westbeneath the nose, ern firms. Mil have also developed a new transport infrared imaging, a TV and laser helicopter, the Mil-38. Mil officials maintain rangefinder/desig- that it will be cheaper than its foreign ananator – all of which logues – Italian-British EH-101 ($25-27 milThe current structure of the Russian Helicopter industry. are controlled from lion) or the Sikorsky S-92 ($20-22 million). an MFD in the Several Russian domestic carriers have weapons officer’s forward cockpit. The ordered around 75 of these craft, but since it and a new stores loading system. Other options include a five-bladed glass-fibre Russian 9K113M Ataka missiles are still is powered with a Pratt & Whitney of main rotor and X-type tail rotor, and the usable, but western anti-tank missiles can Canada engine the Russian military are not anxious to procure a military version. For replacement of the old engines with NPO also be launched from the airframe. About 1,500 of these type of helicopters now, the Mil26T appears to remain the Klimov TV3-117MA-SB3 models. The NATO-standard configuration are in service in more than two dozen major troop transport helicopter of choice. includes a 1553B type KNEI-24 digital misThe Mil Mi-24/35 remains the epitome of the Russian attack helicopter (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson) sion system avionics and databus. The
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Next-Century Helicopters The two major design bureaux – Mil and Kamov – and their associated production plants have been looking at future designs, but have yet to move these 21st century military helicopter designs into the prototype development phase. “There are some future concept helicopters – some of which date back 10-15 years – that the bureaux have developed but these are all only on paper,” said a Moscow-based aerospace analyst. “What they are talking about is that they are looking into something like the Sikorskiy X-2 design in which a coaxial rotor and pushing rotor are integrated onto one air frame.” An example is the Kamov V-100 design, which was an advanced heavy attack helicopter project that was proposed in the 1980s. In some respects it was to supplant – or even replace – some of the missions of the Sukhoi Su-25 “flying tank,” fixed wing jet-powered attack aircraft. The pusher propeller was to give the aircraft a speed of 400 km per hour and the lift capacity of its
“What what they are talking about is that they are looking into something like the Sikorskiy X-2 design in which a coaxial rotor and pushing rotor are integrated onto one air frame.” rotor and engines was to permit it to carry some 3000kg of bombs and rockets. Additionally, the helicopter would carry two high-calibre machine-guns and could also carry two anti-ship or antiradiation/anti-SAM missiles. Like many projects of that period, it still exits on paper but no progress has been made in the intervening years. The main difference between the two different bureaux designs is that – as has been their tradition – the Mil design utilises a single rotor with a pushing rotor in the tail, and the Kamov designs proposed today have a counter-rotating rotor similar
The Mil Mi-28N is now in service (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
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to the Sikorsky concept. Privately, the people from Mil and Kamov state that the work performed on fleshing out these designs thus far has not gone beyond these concept drawings. They estimate that the design and development could amount to US $1.5-2.5 billion, or even more. This is the amount that the two bureaux together are asking from the Russian state budget for all of the prospective programmes they have proposed. The money that is available to the industry now goes into the Mil-28N programme and the Russian armed forces are not even interested in funding the upgrade programmes that several export customers have already procured.
Russian Tiger One of the other design proposals that Russia’s industry has discussed is a tandem helicopter similar to the Eurocopter Tiger that would be developed in conjunction with the Indians – similar to the proposal that the two countries have signed to develop a fifth-generation fighter aircraft. The idea would be that this programme would “tempt” the Indians into providing
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the majority of the funding in return for the technology transfer that Russia would be providing to New Delhi’s industry. Most of the industry analysts in Russia regard this as a very low possibility, but there is one possibility for this programme in the form of the Kazan Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH). The ARH is a derivative of the Ansat helicopter that was originally developed at the Kazan helicopter plant, which is one of its drawbacks. It is literally the first and only helicopter to be designed and flown without having been developed at either the Mil or Kamov bureaux. The ARH is also known as the Ansat2RTs (Razvedchik-Tseleukazatel or reconnaissance-target indicator) variant which first flew on 29 July 2005 in Kazan, which was just two weeks before its appearance at the MAKS 2005 air show in Zhukovsky near Moscow. It has a narrow Tiger-like fuselage with tandem cockpits for the pilot (rear cabin) and the front cabin for the Mission Systems Operator (MSO). It is
equipped with the Russian electro-optical TOES-521 turret with thermo-vision camera and laser rangefinder and can carry up to 1,300 kg of weapons and stores on four pylons. It also has a single 12.7 mm cannon on the starboard side. The development of the Ansat-2RC has been entirely funded by Kazan, and their target markets are Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica. The export market is the Ansat2RC's best bet, however, as the Russian Air Force requirement for a light helicopter is more likely to be filled by the Ka-60R and Ka-226. The Ka-60 was long ago selected for this mission but was delayed due to funding problems. (There has been some talk about a limited buy of the Ka-60 for use by the Russian special forces, but no concrete orders yet.) The ARH is the first Russian helicopter to be equipped with a digital fly-by-wire flight control system and the cockpit is equipped with two MFDs for flight, navigation and system monitoring. It is designed for a 20,000 hour airframe life.
The two-seat variant of the Ka-50, the Ka-52. An intriguing a unique concept in military science and aviation (PHOTO: Reuben Johnson)
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Consolidation In order to try and create the same synergies that have been created with the formation of the Unified Aircraft-Building Corporation (OAK), the Mil and Kamov bureaux and the relevant production plants have all been folded into a new conglomerate, Rosvertol. The idea is that the bureaux are supposed to combine what they know how to do to develop designs that would combine the virtues of the two markedly different philosophies into one set of hybrid designs. At present, the industry has a thriving export business but it has no funding for a new-generation X-2 type design, and the Russian MoD will not fund upgrade programmes. Nor will Russian military support procurement of the Mil-38 (the ultimate Mil8 replacement) because it has a Pratt & Whitney PW127 engine and there is no Russian substitute for it available. Today Russian helicopters remain a viable and useful option for anyone needing a military helicopter capability. The longevity of the current designs seems not to be an issue for potential customers, and the limited number of new designs seems not to have created a negaA MR tive impact. However, only time will tell.
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Xinjiang China’s Wild West? Xinjiang, China’s westernmost province, is one of the most remote and inhospitable territories of the world. It was a land that both fascinated and appalled Western ethnologists and explorers, such as the renowned early 20th century British explorer Sir Aurel Stein, who described the region as a “desolate wilderness, bearing everywhere the impress of death.” Today, Xinjiang is the focus of a variety of national security concerns for the Chinese state. by Stuart Notholt
The Uyghur mosque, maintains the more traditional appearance.
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he history of the region is a complex tangle of invasion and counter-invasion between competing powers. China first asserted control in around 121 BC when it established a garrison acting both as a bridge to the Silk Route and to establish diplomatic and trading relations with other powers, most notably Persia. But Chinese control remained tentative, limited by the hostility of terrain and its inhabitants, as well as depending on the relative strengths of the Chinese state and its neighbours. In 751 AD, Chinese power in the Central Asian region was decisively truncated following their defeat at the hands of the Arabs at the Battle of Talas, northeast of Tashkent. In 840, the Turkic-speaking Uyghur people, having been driven out their ancestral homes by the Mongols, established kingdoms in the territory, and gradually adopted Islam. In 1884, Turkestan (as it then was) was incorporated into the Manchu Empire, and it was during
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this period that the first small scale military colonies were established in the territory, a precursor to the huge military-industrial investment in modern Xinjiang.
Ethnic Unrest Between 1884 and 1949, over forty armed uprisings took place against the Chinese governors. Only after the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was the area brought definitively under Chinese control. In subsequent purges, up to 40,000 ‘proSoviet’ Muslims were forced to flee the country. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was created in 1955 in an apparent response to local sensitivities, but in 1957, in a further move aimed at reducing Russian/Soviet influence, the Chinese authorities banned the use of Cyrillic script for the Turkic languages of Xinjiang. A second mass exodus of Muslims to the Soviet Union took place in 1962. Ethnic riots broke out in the 1980s and in 1997, when fighting broke out in Yining after the police broke up a peaceful demonstration. In 1998, Chinese
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President Jiang Zemin visited the region and called for a “people’s war” against “separatist elements.” ‘Xinjiang’, a term first used in 1768, means ‘New Frontier’ in Chinese and the name is significant as emphasizing both that Xinjiang is not a core Chinese territory and its status as a buffer state between China and its neighbours. It is not the name used by the indigenous Uyghur, Kazakh, Tajiki and other populations of the territory amongst whom ‘East Turkestan’ (implicitly linking the region culturally to fellow Turkic peoples to the west) or ‘Uyghurstan’ are preferred. Holding Xinjiang meets a number of Chinese geopolitical imperatives. The cardinal aim, for Chinese strategists, is preserving the integrity of the eastern Chinese heartland from attack and invasion. To this end, generations of Chinese leaders have sought the expansion of Chinese controlled territories to the north and west of the Pacific maritime and eastern provinces, creating immense buffer areas. Confronted with foreign encroachment, Chinese strategy could simply be to draw the enemy in and exhaust him. Chinese losses might be considerable under such a doctrine, but the Chinese have plenty of people, and the improbability of successfully advancing an army across hostile territory the thousands of miles necessary to penetrate the Chinese heartland renders it an unattractive prospect for any
In subsequent purges, up to 40,000 ‘pro-Soviet’ Muslims were forced to flee the country. enemy general capable of basic map-reading.
What if… Only in the north east does this strategy have its weaknesses. It is geographically closer to the heartland, and as an invasion route is also capable of being supported by maritime incursions from the Pacific which the relatively weak Chinese navy might be unable to prevent. Indeed, it was from this direction that the Chinese suffered Japanese depredations in the 1930s including the bodily carving out of sizable chunks of Chinese territory to form client states such as Manchukuo. The north east was also, for that matter, the route by which the Russians, in their turn, displaced the Japanese in the closing hours of the Second World War – and the Chinese speculate that, had the Enola Gay not brought the war to a premature end, the Soviets could well have established a client state in post-war Manchuria, much as they did, in Chinese eyes at least, in Outer Mongolia. (Until 1945, atlases routinely showed Outer Mongolia as a part of China, notwithstanding the creation of a proMoscow Socialist state – a Soviet Republic in
A Hui Mosque is visibly different from the traditional that most people are aware of. The Hui follow Chinese folkways in language; architecture etc and so fit the ‘Great Han’ ethnic model.
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all but name – in 1922.) The Chinese are also acutely aware of other historical ‘what ifs’. Had the putative Soviet republics established in 1930s East Turkestan endured, what is today the Chinese province of Xinjiang would presumably be the ‘sixth stan’ in the Central Asian constellation of post-Soviet states – bringing potential hostile influences, be they Russian, American, or jihadist, a thousand miles closer to Xian, Beijing and Shanghai. With its 3,500 miles of border with eight neighboring countries, Xinjiang is militarily important as the western arm of China’s territorial force multiplier, and this is therefore one reason Beijing needs to retain control. But there are other factors too. Xianjiang is economically crucial for fuelling the growth of the Chinese core regions. It accounts for a sixth of China’s territory, is an important oil producer – having the largest remaining reserves in China - and is home to China’s nuclear weapons test sites. A broader psychological reason is bound up with the ethnic politics of the Chinese state, politics that are further tempered by what remains of its Communist official ideology. How the Chinese view themselves, and others, is crucial to understanding Chinese strategic imperatives in outposts of empire such as Tibet or Xinjiang. Superficially, Chinese government policy towards ethnic minorities appears confused or contradictory. Over 80% of the population is of one ethnic origin – the Han Chinese – but over 50 minorities, some of them numbering several million individuals, are recognized in the Chinese constitution. The ethnic distinctiveness of these groups is publicly lauded and supported, especially in tourist brochures. ‘Folksy’ manifestations of ethnicity, such as wearing quaint dress or performing strange and colorful floorshows for the benefit of both domestic and international tourists, are actively encouraged. Uyghur dances were scheduled in the opening sequence of the Beijing Olympics, but are akin, as the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples’ Organization website acidly puts it, to “a Chinese equivalent of the Black and White Minstrel Show.” On the other hand, repression of ethnic and religious civil liberties is routine, systematic, and often brutal. The Chinese view of race relations is closely informed by the traditional ‘Great Han’ school of thought that maintains that all Chinese are ultimately of one ethnicity and that differences in religion, cultural and lan-
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guage are essentially incidental. The implication, and one that aligns nicely with Communist ideology, is that these differences need to be overcome or actively suppressed in the name of national unity. Recalling the disunity that facilitated every foreign invasion from the Mongols to the Europeans and Japanese, Chinese leaders have a paranoia of anything that might ‘split’ or diminish national solidarity.
Religions The Hiu Muslims, who, their Islam aside, are barely distinguishable from their Han neighbours, can be incorporated fairly readily into this model. Others, such as the Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Tibetans are more problematic, diverging from the Chinese ‘norm’ not only in religion, but language, race, and, most crucially, national aspiration. This difficulty arises, of course, because for the most part China’s ‘acquisition’ of minorities has largely taken place through territorial annexation rather than migration or internal divergence. This means that the regional national groups are not part of the Chinese ‘demos’ (and have little desire to be), are geographically concentrated within defined territories, and have both actual and perceived historical and contemporary grievances against Beijing – all the ingredients, in other words, for fermenting the type of regional/secessionist ethnic conflicts we see elsewhere in the world. Domestically, the Chinese security response to this perceived threat has been unsubtle. Religious minorities suffered disproportionately – even when compared to the immense hardships borne by the population at large – during China’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ and ‘Great Leap Forward’. A toxic combination of Communist ideology, zealotry and outright racism - Madame Mao for one was notorious for despising minority peoples – led to widespread imprisonments, executions, and calculated examples of religious offensiveness, as when Red Guards converted Mosques into pigsties and forced imans to clean them. The modern Chinese government has denounced such excesses as ‘mistakes’ and sought to demonstrate its religious tolerance – but the fact remains that all religious observance in China, whether Buddhist, Muslim or Christian, is tolerated only within very narrow parameters defined by the state. Since 1998, religious leaders (and civic groups) have been required to register with
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the government, and a condition of registration is unambiguous support for the territorial integrity of the Chinese state and support for the Communist government. Even after registration, groups may be subject to ‘rectification drives’ if they are deemed to be straying from the government line. Observers report the routine arrest, torture and imprisonment of religious and other dissidents in Xinjiang, as elsewhere in the country, with Amnesty International claiming up to 100 executions of political prisoners in Xinjiang each year. Repression is not confined to Muslims: in April 2008 the Xinjiang authorities detained dozens of ‘House Church’ Christians in a move likened to the clamp-down against Buddhist monks in Tibet a few weeks earlier. Forty-eight Christians were reportedly arrested for holding a Bible class and worship in a private house without official sanction. Most were released after agreeing to study the government’s Handbook on Religious Policy and report back to the authorities to recite what they had learnt.
The Closed Loop Another important but curious facet of Beijing’s ethnic/regional policy is that military and political leaders – operating as they do in a ‘closed loop’ information environment of their own creation - for the most part genuinely believe their own propaganda. The reluctance of regional minorities to accept the manifest civilizing and progres-
Indeed, it was from this direction that the Chinese suffered Japanese depredations in the 1930s including the bodily carving out of sizable chunks of Chinese territory to form client states such as Manchukuo ASIAN MILITARY REVIEW
The Chinese maintain a heavy police prescened
sive benefits of Chinese Communist rule are held, at least in private, to be further evidence of the minorities’ backwardness and general recalcitrance. In a slightly more benign interpretation, Beijing’s policy towards regional minorities is the same dual strategy applied to the population as a whole – win them over with economic growth while crushing political opposition and, especially, separatism. In practical terms, effective internal repression means that domestic Muslim dissent in Xinjiang is, at best, muted, and easily contained to such minor incidents as the March 2008 demonstrators in Hotan who, in an action said to have been inspired by the turmoil in Tibet, unfurled banners calling for the creation of an independent state in Xianjang. (Or, as the official police statement put it “a small group trying to trick the masses into an uprising”.) Even the Chinese state – notorious for its heavy-handedness and tendency to over-react (as demonstrated in Tibet) – can safely afford to ignore such annoyances, at least for the present. Indeed, one difficulty for Beijing has long been in persuading external observers that Muslim dissidence in Xinjiang poses any kind of genuine security threat. In this context, the 9/11 Islamist attacks on the United States came as a public relations godsend to the authorities.
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Over 80% of the population is of one ethnic origin – the Han Chinese – but over 50 minorities, some of them numbering several million individuals, are recognized in the Chinese constitution.
Xinjiang is subject to intense ‘Sinoization’ as seen in the bannerage here.
Since 9/11 China has launched a concerted, and largely successful, public relations campaign aimed at aligning her fears over Xinjiang with the broader ‘war on terror.’ Just a year after 9/11, Beijing achieved a significant diplomatic coup when it persuaded Washington to place the so-called ‘East Turkistan Islamic Movement’ – a group which many in the intelligence community doubt even exists – on its list of international terrorist organizations.
Planned Terror In March 2008, Wang Lequan, the Communist Party chief in Xinjiang, revealed that the security forces had ‘smashed’ a major East Turkistan Islamic Movement terrorist cell. The supporters of the “three evil forces” of terrorism, sabotage and separatism (terms largely interchangeable in the Chinese official lexicon) had, Wang said, been plotting suicide bombings in the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, in Shanghai, and specifically against the Beijing Olympics. The authorities claimed to have confiscated detonators, poisons, explosives, and Islamic propaganda calling for a jihad against China. In what may have been a separate incident, two people were also reported as having been killed in a gun battle with police in Urumqi. Several among the 45 suspects arrested subsequently confessed to planning attacks against military, government and civilian targets, and to receiving training abroad. In the same month, the state Xinghua media reported that air marshals had foiled an attempt to destroy a China Southern Airlines flight to Beijing from Urumqi. A 19year old woman, presumably a would-be suicide bomber, was arrested with a can of
gasoline which she had allegedly intended detonating on board. Congratulating the security forces on their prompt action against the terrorists, Nur Bekri, Chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, accused Uyghur Muslim separatists of trying to “create an air disaster.” The coincidental timing of the airline plot and the release of additional details from the January raid raised some suspicions as to their veracity. Sporadic incidents have continued to be reported throughout 2008. In July, police shot dead five Uyghur militants caught with ten others in a Urumqi apartment. The Muslims were purportedly wielding knives, and shouting 'sacrifice for Allah!', when they were cornered. In general, however, the fact that the dissidents are Muslims means that they have been given short shrift by the United States, which has, as in other parts of the world, been woefully slow to recognize varying shades of green within the very broad Islamic spectrum. However, some commentators have speculated that, given China’s rising thirst for oil, diplomatic pressure might by put on Beijing by Muslim oil producing states. This “desolate wilderness, bearing everywhere the impress of death.”
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seems optimistic. As long as Beijing is able to maintain the perception of a Islamist threat, and while the main Middle Eastern suppliers remain, at least nominally, anti-Islamist allies of the United States, significant Arab criticism of Beijing’s activities in an obscure corner of its own territory is improbable, even if the victims are fellow Muslims. For the Gulf States, as for Washington and Moscow, turning a blind eye to any inconsistencies in China’s claims of Islamic militancy in Xinjang currently remains expedient. Similarly, Sudan, China’s key oil supplying partner in Africa, is unlikely, given its own treatment of minorities, to raise many qualms over China’s internal policies. Khartoum is in any case dependent on Chinese diplomatic support, through Beijing’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council, for vetoing international criticism over Darfur and South Sudan. China’s other main oil supplier, Iran, is unlikely to rock the boat either, It is already an informal ally of Beijing and, moreover, most of the Uyghurs are Sunni Muslims rather than adherents to the Shia orthodoxy practiced in Tehran.
The Security Agenda As for Xinjiang’s immediate neighbours in Central Asia, they have required very little persuasion concerning the security advantages of agreeing with Beijing that Islamic extremists pose a real and present regional danger. The spectre of Islamist insurgency is, after all, an argument they have deployed themselves in order to maintain support in Washington for otherwise unsavoury regimes. In fairness, the Central Asian states have seen significant post-independence violence, in which jihadists have played either a direct or an opportunistic a role. In Tajikistan, weak civil institutions, religious, regional and tribal animosities, and factional conflicts within the ruling elite, all contributed to a rapid descent into full-scale civil war in the early 1990s. With the aid of Russian and Uzbeki
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troops, the Tajiki government gained the upper hand and in December 1992 a new government was formed under Emomali Rahmonov, who was heavily dependent on militia support from his home Kulyab region. These militias launched an at times ferocious attack on opposition factions, including militants from the Islamic Renaissance Party. Defeated in Tajikistan, rebel elements later became aligned with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, while others re-armed with the aid of Islamist militants from groups such as Jamait-I-Islami. In fighting in 1996 (which spread as far as the capital) Afghan militants were encountered amongst the combatants. In Uzbekistan troops opened fire in May 2005 on Islamist demonstrators in the town of Andijan, killing around 1,000. In a particularly severe clampdown on Muslim activity, since partially rescinded, local officials restricted public prayers, insisted that all restaurants sell alcohol, and banned mosques from broadcasting their traditional calls to prayer. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that regional forums such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (linking China with the Central Asian republics and Russia) have made an easy transition from economic cooperation into the security arena, seeing the establishment, in Bishkek, of an ‘anti-terrorist centre’ with the aim of preventing crossborder terrorism. Central Asia benefits from Chinese diplomatic (and, possibly, practical) support for their own internal clampdowns, while Beijing benefits from the effective extinction of Uyghur dissent in bordering states. Currently, the chances of any Uyghur insurgents maintaining a rear supply base in Central Asia are remote. As a result the Chinese have succeeding in moving visible Uyghur dissent well away from the region and the prying eyes of any Western camera crews, particularly in Olympic year. The notorious factionalism of the various Uyghur and other ethnic groups has also helped China, although ironically a certain solidarity has been achieved through the focus of the Beijing games. Several hundred Uyghur protestors came together, for example, for a March 2008 demonstration in Istanbul, in a rare display of unity, The Russians, too – with an eye on Chechnya – have embraced the Chinese security agenda, although neither Moscow and Beijing are exactly enthusiastic about one of the main post-9/11 consequences for the region, the stationing in the Central
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The PLA maintain a highly visible presence as well.
Asian republics of American troops and intelligence assets in what is, to both China and Russia, their own backyard.
The PLA Factor A further reason the Chinese military are determined to keep a hold on Xinjiang is more venal. As in other parts of the Chinese periphery, as indeed for the Chinese ‘mainland’, there are significant links between the Peoples’ Liberation Army and parastatal regional bodies. In the north west, the Xinjiang Production & Construction Corps fuses Chinese government and military authority, as well as representing a massive commercial investment. Even viewed purely as a commercial venture, the figures for the Production & Construction Corps are extraordinary. A business network with a turnover of $6.2 billion in 2007, the Corps produces half of Xinjiang’s cotton output, is a leading stakeholder in regional construction and transportation, publishes 17 newspapers, runs its own TV and radio stations, and operates 1,400 commercial enterprises, including 13 publicly traded companies. Roughly 2.3 million Han now live in semi-colonial settlements established by the Corps. As direct outgrowth of the PLA – and one in which many Army officers doubtless have
…with Amnesty International claiming up to 100 executions of political prisoners in Xinjiang each year. ASIAN MILITARY REVIEW
a personal vested interest – the scale and profitability of the Corps’ commercial activities make any military retrenchment all the more unlikely. Furthermore, the Corps has a direct security role. As an isolated and dependent client population in a potentially hostile land, the Corps’ Han settlers have no less an interest than the Army in defending Beijing’s stakeholding in Xinjiang. Corps settlers act as a militia in times of crisis, alongside Army and security forces, and as Zhao Guangyong, the Corps Vice Secretary General, puts it, the Corps plays a “very important role in promoting national unity … The battle against ethnic separatism and invasion has never stopped.” Zhao’s use of the word ‘invasion’ is telling. The Chinese earnestly believe that if they dropped their guard the outlying regions would be flooded by immigrants – Indians in the case of Tibet and, presumably, jihadist Muslims in the case of Xinjiang. At one level, the Chinese view of Xinjiang has a disarmingly simple logic. Modern Xinjiang has a Muslim population. Therefore it must have been invaded by Muslims at some stage in its history. If it is capable of being so occupied once, it is conceivable that history could repeat itself, placing a hostile community astride a highway straight into the heart of China: Xinjiang may be 2,000 miles from Beijing, but it is only 300 miles from potential troublespots like Kabul or Islamabad. The defense of the Chinese capital thus begins at the ‘New Frontier’. Meanwhile, depending on its immediate commercial and political needs, the Chinese government alternatively presents Xinjiang as a stable area for investment, or as a hotbed of Islamic AMR fundamentalism.
Safeguarding commercial and national assets through advanced
Sa w S ve h G a 29 and en D t le th p yo 5 as Au ay u 00 t gu be bo st fo ok 20 re 08
surveillance technology and strategy Two-Day Conference: 10-11 November 2008 Post-Conference Workshops: 12 November 2008 Venue: Grand Hyatt Hotel, Singapore
Distinguished Speaker Panel Admiral Timothy J. Keating, USN Commander, U.S. Pacific Command Vice Admiral Michel de Fresse de Monval,Deputy-Chief of Staff for International Affairs, French Navy Special Agent Bradley Howell, Deputy Assistant Director for Maritime Domain Awareness, Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Admiral (Ret.) Walter Doran, Vice President, Raytheon (Formerly Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet) Admiral (Ret.) Tan Sri Anwar Nor, Former Chief of Navy, Malaysia Rear Admiral (Ret.) S Balachandran, Chief of Staff Officer, Indian Navy Captain Lars Sauners, Chief of Naval Operations Joint HQ, Norwegian Navy Commander Georg Lárusson, Coast Guard Director General, Iceland Captain SMD Usman, Commander Maritime Guard Command, Nigeria Maritime Administration & Safety Agency Colonel Baki Bala, Director of Project Management Directorate, Ministry of Defence, Albania Major Andrew Mallia, Staff Officer 2 Maritime & Air Operations, Armed Forces, Malta Captain Gerald M. Swanson, Commander, Coast Guard Activities Far East, US Coast Guard Vice Admiral (Ret.) Premvir Das, Current Member of the National Security Advisory Board of India Dr. Xu Ke, Specialist Maritime Security Matters, Centre for Maritime Studies, National University of Singapore Dr. Evangelos Kotsakis, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen Speaker to be Advised, Sri Lanka Navy Speaker to be Advised, Navy Headquarters, Indonesian Navy Captain Gabriel Kinney, USCG (Ret.) Business Development Maritime Systems and Sensors, Lockheed Martin Corporation Roger Cook, Director of Waterside Security Systems L-3 Manfred Scheiring, Global Sales Director, Scotty Group Jack Rienzo, Raytheon Mijndert Wiesenekker, Design & Proposal Manager High Speed and Naval Craft, Damen Simon Hughes, General Manager, Kelvin Hughes Dr. Bernard Tomasini, Maritime Safety & Security Business Manager, Safety & Information Systems Division, DCNS Thomas Robinson, Business Development Director for Civil Security & Response (CSRP) Programmes, Raytheon
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This year’s high-level summit addresses challenges gathered from the field on global issues of Coastal Surveillance, and efforts to establish security and safety in the maritime domain: Collaborative Security Measures: Unveil what needs to be done to establish a balanced and a more effective joint effort for the security in the region Peace Time Activities: How to best prevent and pre-empt piracy and armed-robbery; guard against drug trafficking and illegal immigration Smaller Maritime States: Examine how smaller maritime forces can use readily-available tools and existing technologies to generate significant levels of MDA at nominal cost Technology Innovations: Presentations and exhibition booths showcasing the latest technology and tools to enhance Coastal Surveillance and Maritime Domain Awareness Beyond Asia Pacific: Find out what your peers have achieved in case studies from Africa, North Atlantic and the Arctic Sea
Post-Conference Workshops 12 November 2008 Workshop A:
Effective decision-making and technological strategy to maximise Maritime Domain Awareness
Workshop B:
Maritime Domain Awareness: Trends in coastal and harbour surveillance systems. This workshop is open to registrations from active military personnel only!
Email: enquiry@iqpc.com.sg l Tel: +65 6277 9388 l Fax: +65 6720 3804 l www.coastalsurveillance08.com
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Jakarta is in the process of taking delivery of six Russian Mi-35 Hind attack helicopters according to Russian news reports.
INDONESIA Russia to deliver six Mi-35 attack helicopters Jakarta is in the process of taking delivery of six Russian Mi-35 Hind attack helicopters according to Russian news reports. The head of Russia’s Rosoboroneksport office in Indonesia Nikolai Kireyev is quoted as saying that 15 Indonesian pilots and technical specialists have been undergoing training at the Kazan helicopter manufacturing plant in Russia's Volga area since March in preparation for delivery of the aircraft. As Asian Military Review went to press the delivery of the six helicopters was due to take place in August although no specific date was given because there was still need to finalise some of the contract details. The six new delvieries will add to the first two Mi-35s the Indonesian armed forces took delivery of in September 2003. Indonesia is in the process of a major re-equipment programme largely driven by credits from Moscow.
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AUSTRALIA Defence infrastructure redevelopment The Australian government has given the go ahead for the Department of Defence to spend over A$1.1 billion on upgraded defence facilities around the country. In a statement to parliament defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon said that, 'the Government is committed to providing the Australian Defence Force with facilities of high standard to support current and future capability.' The lion's share of the money, some A$623 million is going towards the development of Hardened and Networked Army facilities at Edinburgh, South Australia. The project includes working accommodation, training facilities, a driver training area, a vehicle wash point and common user facilities for both army and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) personnel. Construction of the facilities is planned to commence later this year and be completed by 2011.
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The next largest project is worth A$168.7 million and is for the provision of new Multi-Role Helicopter Facilities. The project will provide operational, maintenance and training infrastructure to support the introduction and operation of the army's new MRH-90 helicopters, including new headquarters for 16th Aviation Brigade and elements of the Defence Material Organisation at Gallipoli Barracks in Brisbane. Other projects included A$72.1m for the Robertson Barracks Redevelopment to provide facilities to support the new M1-A1 Abrams main battle tank fleet, A$80.2m for the construction of a combined messing facility and office accommodation for the Headquarters of Army's 7th Brigade at Enoggera, A$64.2m for the Airborne Early Warning and Control Facilities at RAAF Base Tindal, A$58.7m for the RAAF Base Tindal Redevelopment Stage Five, and A$49.8m for RAAF Base Darwin Redevelopment. All the projects are expected to be completed over the next three years.
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New lightweight torpedo Thales announced that the MU90 Lightweight Torpedo completed a successful test firing from HMAS Toowoomba on 18 June marking the first time an MU90 has been fired from a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) warship. The MU90 is an advanced lightweight anti-submarine torpedo developed by EuroTorp, which has already been acquired by the French, Italian, German, Danish and Polish navies. It is to replace the RAN's existing lightweight torpedo that is near the end of its shelf life. Thales said that the test firing involved the use of an exercise torpedo, which is a fully functioning torpedo with an electronic recorder that monitors performance instead of an actual warhead. 'The sea trial has demonstrated the RAN's capability to successfully launch the MU90, have it operate to preset commands and correctly classify a target. On completion of the run, the exercise torpedo performed end-of-run procedures that allowed it to be safely recovered by a Torpedo Recovery Vessel,' the company said in a release. The weapon will be refurbished in the Torpedo Maintenance and Integration Facility at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. The facility is being established by the Djimindi Alliance, which compris-
TAIWAN US halts sales In the run up to the Beijing Olympics in August, and as People’s Republic of China and Republic of China (RoC/Taiwan) prepared for their first face to face talks in over a decade, the US State Department has moved to freeze all congressional notifications of arms transfers to Taipei. According to press reports some $12 billion worth of notifications have been frozen with Taiwanese officials concerned that the freeze may well extend beyond August until a new president is inaugurated in the US in January next year. Such a freeze would set back Taipei’s ambitious plans for bolstering the capabilities of the RoC armed forces. US officials see the freeze as part of an effort not to derail Beijing-Taipei negotia-
es the Defence Materiel Organisation, Thales Australia and EuroTorp, to provide complete integration and maintenance capability in Australia for the new torpedo. The facility will be formally opened on 31 July.
Global wideband satcoms Following a successful operational test programme, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has begun receiving operational capability from the US’ Wideband Global Satellite (WGS) Communications system. The service provides Australia with access to world-leading communications capability in terms of coverage, operational flexibility and bandwidth according to officials. The ADF will incrementally receive more capability as satellites are added to the constellation leading to full capability in 2013. The WGS Communications system supports wideband military satellite communications services for mobile, transportable, and fixed users. Access to the capability will enable the ADF’s next generation of military capabilities, such as the air warfare destroyers, amphibious ships, multi-mission unmanned aerial vehicles and land platforms to operate in a network centric environment. Under its partnership with the US Canberra has funded one satellite plus
tions or disturb plans for President George W Bush to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August. In recent months Beijing has become increasingly vociferous in its objections to US arms sales to Taiwan. The halt on notifications is believed to cover a large number of arms sales being conducted under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme. Among the systems still believed to be awaiting approval include 30 AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters, 60 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, eight diesel electric submarines, four Patriot PAC-3 air defense missile batteries and 66 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 50/52 fighters.
President confirms funds for defence In June Taiwan’s new president, Ma Ying
AUGUST 2008
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associated ground infrastructure to extend the constellation to six satellites, with Washington providing funds for the remaining five.
Air capability increase In June the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF’s) air capability was enhanced by the successful trialling of a new radar warning receiver and acceptance of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) in to service. The first production configured F/A18 Hornet fitted with a new Radar Warning Receiver successfully flew from RAAF Williamtown some 18 months after the decision to acquire the equipment. As part of the Hornet upgrade programme, Australia’s fleet of F/A-18 aircraft are being fitted with upgraded Radar Warning Receivers, countermeasures systems and radar jamming systems. The defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon also announced in parliament that earlier in the year the RAAF has also accepted the Operational and Technical Airworthiness of the JDAM on the F/A18A/B fighters. According to officials, JDAM provides the RAAF with a state-ofthe-art weapon capability, allowing them to accurately employ air to ground weapons during day or night and in all weather conditions through the use of Global Positioning System technology.
Jeou told a US delegation led by former Secretary of Defense, William Perry, that Taiwan continues to be concerned with its defence and that the new government would continue allocating funds for defensive arms to ensure the state’s security. Ma told reporters that there was a move to rationalise the country’s defence budget to acquire the right mix of defence systems to form a solid national defence force. The president added that Taiwan would also restore its reputation in the international community as a peace-maker by illustrating to other nations that the country would seek peace and stability with its neighbour, the People’s Republic of China. Taipei is believed to be lobbying Washington to ensure that any freeze on defence cooperation is as temporary as possible.
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INDIA Attack Helicopter tender New Delhi has issued a request for proposal (RfP) to buy 22 attack helicopters at a potential cost of $550 million that would also include weapons. The request was issued in late May to the major helicopter manufacturers AgustaWestland, Boeing, Eurocopter, Khazan and Bell Helicopter. Rather than being an army asset the aircraft are set to enter service with the Indian Air Force (IAF). According to IAF officials the request stipulates that the helicopter should weigh 2,500 kg or more when empty and be twin engined. The aircraft should also have advanced antiarmour capability and include provision for a turret gun of 20mm or higher calibre as well as be able to fire 70mm rockets to a range of 1.2 km In addition, it should be able to employ air-to-ground, fire-and-forget missiles with a range of at least 7 kilometers. According to the current timeframes the first two helicopters would be supplied within 24 months of contract signature with final delivery within 36 months. As with other Indian contracts the vendor will be expected to provide an industrial offset, in this case 30 percent. Officials believe that a contract can be finalised within a two year period.
International tender for ASW helicopter upgrade According to press reports the Indian Navy (IN) has released a tender to the international defence industry for the upgrade of 17 Sea King anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopters with a potential value of around $300 million. A request for proposals was released to companies in France, Israel, the UK and US in mid-June. There is an urgent need to keep the aircraft operationally up to date, which provide the IN with a large part of its ASW screen capability. India originally purchased 43 Sea King helicopters from the UK's Westland Helicopters some 20 plus years ago. However, US sanctions and lack of investment meant that many of the aircraft had to be grounded leaving mainly the ASW fleet flying. Late last year, the Indian government
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approved a plan for Hindustan Aircraft Limited to upgrade 18 Sea King Mk42 and Mk42B ASW helicopters at a cost of some $200 million. The plan was for HAL to purchase new ASW equipment on the international market and update the aircraft. That plan now seems to have been dropped with concerns over HAL's ability to work as a system integrator for such complex systems. According to reports the new tender is for a midlife upgrade that will include the replacement of obsolete and redundant equipment, the integration of modern avionics, and a new sensor and weapons package. Currently, the IN uses the aircraft in both an ASW and anti-surface vessel role, as well as for electronic warfare and search and rescue missions. A major part of the upgrade plan is to improve the helicopters' abilities to operate in adverse weather conditions and at night. Also on the IN's wish list is the integration of new ant-ship missiles.
continue. We fully expect the IAF to be able to commence flying training with their new Hawks during the summer.’ So far BAE Systems has delivered 12 Hawks to Air Force Station Bidar in Karnataka, which is the main operating base for the training aircraft. A further 12 aircraft are to be delivered direct from the UK the other 42 aircraft in the $1.75 billion deal are to be produced under licence by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). There have been concerns raised about whether HAL has the knowledge and capabilities to produce the aircraft without difficulties. Industry sources say that some IAF officials are concerned that the aircraft will not be up to the same standard as those being built in the UK. Elsewhere in the region BAE Systems is still waiting to here whether its Hawk aircraft will be downselected by the Republic of Singapore Air Force for its trainer requirement.
Delay to Hawk deliveries
Tejas completes hot weather tests
According to industry officials India is delaying the delivery of its Hawk Mk 132 Advanced Jet Trainers because of minor technical difficulties with some of the aircraft delivered already by BAE Systems. Indian daily The Hindu said that under a reworked schedule all 24 aircraft that are being built in the UK should be delivered before the end of the month. However, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has highlighted a small number of minor technical issues that it is asking the manufacturer to rectify before further deliveries are undertaken. Sources told the newspaper that the technical issues included corrosion in some hydraulic pipelines, oxygen leaks and a malfunctioning of the Quick disconnect Equipment Connector. BAE Systems is believed to be aware of the problems and taking steps to rectify the problem. A BAE Systems official told Asian Military Review that, ‘Hawk deliveries are ongoing and will continue as close to the delivery schedule as possible. There are some outstanding issues which BAE Systems and the IAF are working together to resolve and both parties are keen to ensure the rigorous acceptance procedures
India's developmental Tejas Light Combat Aircraft has completed hot weather flight trials at Air Force Station, Nagpur according to a government release issued in early June. The aim of the trials was to check operation of the aircraft's system under high ambient temperature conditions of over 40 degrees celsius. According to officials, the avionics system, flight control system and air conditioning system were all rigorously tested during the trials and functioned satisfactorily. A total of seven flights of four hours duration were flown at Nagpur on two prototype aircraft, PV2 and PV3. The tests included flights at 200 metres above the ground with a speed up to 1000 km/h after 'hot soaking' the aircraft on the runway for two to four hours. During this 'hot soaking' the aircraft skin temperature reached above 70 deg C. The test flights were monitored in real time using a mobile telemetry station. A statement said that, 'this was the first time that the Tejas aircraft had flown a non-stop distance of about 1,000 km from Bangalore. This was possible due to the presence of external fuel tanks (drop tanks) on the aircraft which were
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integrated recently.' It was also the first time that the Tejas aircraft had been flown at such high ambient temperature conditions. A first look at the test data indicated that all the trial objectives were met satisfactorily. A large amount of data has been collected and is under detailed analysis by the aircraft designers at ADA and HAL. The team which carried out the trials included officials from the Indian Air Force, the Aeronautical Development Agency, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, the Centre for Military Airworthiness Certification, and the Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance. The successful completion of the hot weather flights means that the test programme for the aircraft can continue to the next phase. The aircraft is now planned to undertake weapon release trials of precision guided bombs in the deserts of Rajasthan, later in the year.
MALAYSIA Scorpene completes trials DCNS has successfully completed the first trials of the Scorpene submarines it is building for the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN). The company said that following 90 days of Lorient-based trials, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first of class had returned to Cherbourg for a post trials refit. The shipbuilder's trials were held in the deep waters of the Bay of Biscay. During the trial period DCNS conducted some 420 hours of underwater trials to verify the boat's speed, dive endurance, manoeuvrability and stealth in addition to testing its combat system (including sonars and torpedo launch tubes) and safety and rescue systems. Between now and late September, the company will refit KD the submarine and prepare it for final acceptance
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PAKISTAN EW pods In late June, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to Pakistan of AN/ALQ211(V)9 AIDEWS Pods as well as associated equipment and services. The potential sale of the electronic warfare (EW) equipment to Islamabad signals renewed cooperation between the two countries in the wake of difficulties earlier in the year and more recent conflicts about US activities in Pakistan’s border regions. The request is for the potential sale of 21 ITT AN/ALQ-211(V)9 Advanced Integrated Defensive Electronic Warfare Suite (AIDEWS) Pods, software support, repair and return, spare and repair parts, support equipment, technical assistance, publications and technical documentation. The DSCA estimates the cost at about $75 million. Pakistan intends to purchase the AIDEWS pods to enhance its existing F-16 fighter aircraft. The sale will ensure Pakistan’s exist-
trials with the RMN, which is the last pre-delivery milestone. KD Tunku Abdul Rahman is scheduled for delivery in early 2009 and the second boat, KD Tun Razak, is expected to be delivered a few months later. The Malaysian government signed a contract with DCNS and Spanish naval shipbuilder Izar (now Navantia) in June 2002 for the two submarines and associated logistics and training. The Scorpene was designed by DCNS and developed jointly by DCNS and Navantia. Each vessel is built partly in France and partly in Spain. The design features a range of advanced technologies and the submarines will be the most sophisticated vessels in the RMN. Key technologies include advanced hydrodynamics, acoustic discretion and automation. The submarines will shift the naval balance for the RMN and other countries in the region.
ing fleet is compatible with the new F-16 Block 50/52 aircraft that the country is also receiving from the US.
POE to manufacture LU211 HE ammunition At Eurosatory 2008 in August the Pakistan Ordnance Factories signed an agreement with Nexter Munitions for the licence production in Pakistan of LU211 HE artillery ammunition for the Pakistan armed forces. Under the agreement Nexter will provide technology transfer for production of the munitions and will also deliver 15,000 shell component kits. The agreement between the two parties constitutes the first technology transfer of the LU211 HE ammunition and follows Islamabad’s request for the acquisition of long range ammunition. The LU211 modular explosive shell provides long-range fire capability. The ammunition can engage targets at a range of up to 40km when utilized with 155mm/52 cal guns. According to Nexter its terminal effect (blast and fragmentation) is more than twice that of a conventional 155mm HE shell.
SOUTH KOREA Seoul asks for FMS weapons for F15K buy In late June, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notified Congress of a possible $200 million Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to the Republic of Korea of various airborne munitions as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $200 million. According to the DSCA Seoul has requested a possible sale of 125 AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), 14 AIM-120C Captive Air Training Missiles, 2 AIM-120C dummy air training missiles, 35 AGM-65G Maverick missiles, 6 TGM-65G Maverick training missiles, 280 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits, 2 JDAM Load Build Trainers, 2 GBU-24 Laser Guided Bomb Units (PAVEWAY III), 32 GBU-12 Paveway II Laser Guided Bomb Units, 2 GBU-10 Paveway II Laser Guided Bomb Units, and 12,700 RR-170 Radar Jamming Chaff, containers, bomb components, and spare/repair parts. The latest announcement follows closely on the notification in May of AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles at a potential cost of $25 million. The sales of the weapon systems is being addressed in conjunction with the planned direct commercial sale of an additional 21 F-15K fighter aircraft to fulfill part of Seoul’s F-X fighter project.
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