World Defence Forum

Tensions between the United States and Russia escalated over the weekend after President Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton warned the administration would react “very strongly” in case Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad again uses chemical weapons in the upcoming offensive against Sunni Islamist rebels in the northwestern Idlib Province. Bolton told reporters in Jerusalem last week the U.S. is very “concerned about the possibility that Assad may use chemical weapons again.” “Just so there’s no confusion here, if the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons we will respond very strongly and they really ought to think about this a long time,” Bolton said after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. On Friday, Bolton told his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev that the US response to a new chemical attack by the pro-Assad coalition “will be stronger this time” Bloomberg reported. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov subsequently warned the U.S...

The Lockheed Martin Corp. Rotary and Mission Systems segment in Manassas, Va., is moving ahead with a U.S. Navy program to create common, open-architecture system-of-systems electronic designs aboard most Navy submarines to promote interoperability during joint operations with integrated fighting forces. Officials of the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington announced a $13.5 million order to Lockheed Martin on Wednesday to provide additional engineering, integration, and testing for the Submarine Warfare Federated Tactical Systems (SWFTS) program, which seeks to enable submarines to join integrated fighting forces in coastal areas and harbors, as well as in the open ocean. SWFTS is composed of all submarine combat systems and subsystems, mainly consultation, command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence to provide for the overall integration of submarine subsystems into one combat system for naval battle group interconnectivity. The program is a system-of-...

The nuclear power plant onboard Borei Class submarines grants the vessels a surface speed of 15 knots and a submerged speed of 29 knots. The vessels have a maximum diving depth of 480 meters and an endurance of 100 days. Borei Class submarines promise to provide the Russian Navy with a potent long-range capability for years to come. Already, Moscow has placed an order to receive 10 new vessels by 2020. During the Cold War, the Soviet submarine program was a force to be reckoned with. The U.S.S.R.’s underwater killing machines captured the imagination of Westerners and Soviet citizens alike. Tom Clancy’s 1984 novel (adapted as a film the following year) The Hunt for Red October depicted a daring attempt by the crew of a fictitious Soviet Typhoon Class ballistic missile submarine to defect to the United States. In the tense years of confrontation between Washington and Moscow, many Americans imagined Soviet submarines lurking off the country’s coastlines. Submarines granted both superp...

The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth is setting sail to the US to carry out flight trials with the supersonic F-35B Lightning II. Here are some facts and figures about the fighter jets which are based at RAF Marham in Norfolk. The jet measures 51.2ft (15.6m) in overall length, has a wingspan of 35ft (10.7m) and a height of 14.3ft (4.36m). – It has a top speed of 1.6 Mach or 1,200 mph, a Max G rating of 7G, and a combat radius of 518 miles (833km). Lockheed Martin, the American company building the jet, describes its stealth capabilities as “unprecedented”. Its airframe design, advanced materials and other features make it “virtually undetectable to enemy radar”. Britain has committed to a £9.1 billion programme to buy 48 of the jets by 2025 – with a pledge to purchase 138 – they will be jointly operated by Royal Air Force and Royal Navy pilots. – The F-35B jets are built from more than 300,000 individual parts. The UK’s supersonic aircraft have been base...

Unlike Harpoon, LRASM fits in both the Mk. 41 vertical launch system silos of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Burke destroyers and the Mk. 57 silos on the new Zumwalt-class destroyers. This will allow individual ships to carry many more anti-ship missiles than ever before, although this will impact the number of other missiles, such as the SM-6 surface-to-air missile and ASROC anti-submarine rockets, in the ship’s overall inventory. After decades of rapid innovation, the end of the Cold War and the subsequent Global War on Terror all but halted anti-ship missile development in the West. A focus on land operations in the Middle East and Central Asia sent Western navies struggling for relevance. As a result, navies adopted an emphasis towards supporting land forces and operating in the littoral zone. For the most part, ship to ship warfare was reduced to a 9,000-ton destroyer confronting a 2-ton pirate skiff. As rising tensions with China and Russia make clear: ship-to-ship naval wa...

China has recently indicated its willingness to deploy military forces to war-torn Syria in a bid to help the country’s army in its fight against foreign-backed terrorists who have been wreaking havoc in the country since 2011. Many analysts believe that the move could be a substantial step forward in overall Chinese involvement in the Middle East and even on a global level. In an interview with Press TV on Monday, political analyst Daniel Patrick Welch noted that China’s willingness to assist Syria’s military offensive shows that both Beijing and Moscow have now been “fed up” with the US regime change policy in various parts of the world. “There are new indications that China may be considering involvement in helping to retake Idlib in Syria ... It shows that a new order is emerging. China and Russia both with their own integration continuing …. all of these things are indications that they are fed up with the US regime change and a coup factory,” Welch said. The analyst further s...