On Wednesday, South Korea held an official presentation ceremony for the first FA-50GF light attack aircraft for the Polish Armed Forces, symbolically displaying the two countries’ growing cooperation in the arms industry.
Under the theme “Firm Commitment, Secure Future,” the ceremony took place at the headquarters of Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), South Korea’s sole aircraft manufacturer, in Sacheon, about 300 kilometers south of Seoul.
Following flight tests that will take place until next month, KAI plans to deliver 12 FA-50GFs to Poland before the end of the year.
Author: Michael
The Ministry of Defense of the Netherlands announced the selection of H225M Caracal (formerly Eurocopter EC725) helicopters from Airbus Helicopters, ordering 14 such machines. These helicopters are intended to replace the Eurocopter AS532 Cougar (renamed H215M), which has been flying since the mid-1990s.
The price of the contract has not been announced, but the delivery dates are extremely delayed and are not expected to start until 2028. Therefore, the AS532 Cougars will be upgraded to be in service until 2030. The new vehicles are to be used by special operations forces.
Japanese MoD
Japan has kicked off a project to field a new coastal, anti-ship cruise missile as part of the country’s Defense Buildup Program. The “new SSM [surface-to-ship missile]” represents one of many new missile projects, including hypersonic missiles, recently announced by Japan’s Ministry of Defense specifically for “island defense.” It’s likely the new missile will be used on Japan’s southern islands, including around the Senkakus, to deter Chinese military aggression against what is known as the First Island Chain.
The Space Development Agency has awarded Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) a $64 million contract to develop and maintain the agency’s application factory that will automate battle management networks, SDA announced Thursday.
The Battle Management Command, Control and Communications (BMC3) Application Factory is a cloud-based environment that will allow users to test and quickly deploy software through a DevSecOps process to the Space Development Agency’s constellation in low-Earth orbit known as Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).
The Naples Prosecutor has registered eight people in the register of suspects in the framework of an investigation into weapons called Colombiagate.
It is an attempt to sell Italian-made military ships and aircraft to the Colombian government. Specifically, the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master aircraft manufactured by the Leonardo group, along with corvettes, small submarines and shipyard equipment manufactured by Fincantieri.
The value of the agreement exceeded 4,000 million euros.
The suspects are charged with a crime of aggravated international corruption.
U.S. Cyber Command has deployed a team of defensive operators to a Central or South American nation for the first time, according to a Cybercom official.
The deployment is part of so-called hunt-forward operations, which involve physically sending defensively oriented cyber protection teams from the U.S. military’s Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) to foreign nations at their invitation to look for malicious activity on their networks.
GA-ASI
Taiwan’s defense ministry has denied that it’s currently part of tripartite plans to share intelligence gathered by naval surveillance drones with the United States and Japan. In an unusual step, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) moved to rebuff the contents of an article that suggested that, in particular, its forthcoming MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones would be used in this way. But whatever platforms were being used, this kind of intelligence-sharing has implications in peacetime, and especially were China to launch an offensive against the island.
South Korea on Tuesday deployed its fighter jets after Chinese and Russian military jets entered its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on the south and east of the Korean peninsula, an incident that has followed two recent encounters between US and Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
China’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the planes that entered the Seoul ADIZ were taking part in an annual joint air exercise with Russia over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, the sixth such drill since 2019.
FILE: A Tomahawk cruise missile flies toward Iraq after being launched from the AEGIS guided missile cruiser USS San Jacinto March 25, 2003 in the Red Sea. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images).
The Navy is developing a new long-range anti-ship missile — dubbed the Maritime Strike Tomahawk — that would allow Marine units based on Japanese islands to sink Chinese ships taking part in an invasion of Taiwan.
Right now, the Marine Corps’ Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, uses Naval Strike Missiles, which have a range of up to 115 miles.
The Ministry of Defense has published on Flickr the first photos of a K239 multiple rocket launcher in Polish specification on a Jelcz 8×8 chassis. The photos were included in a photo gallery dedicated to Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak’s visit to the Republic of Korea for the official premiere of the FA-50 light combat aircraft flying the Polish checkered flag.
In mid-May, an announcement was made by the Armaments Agency, according to which three Jelcz 8×8 chassis had been delivered to the Republic of Korea.