Author: Michael

A Beechcraft T-44C Pegasus, pictured in 2021. (US Navy)
The US Navy (USN) has selected the Textron King Air 260 to replace the Beechcraft King Air 90 (designated T-44 Pegasus) multi-engine trainer. The initial contract award announced on 25 January orders 10 T-54s for USD113 million, with options for up to 64 of the aircraft, which will be designated T-54A Multi Engine Training System (METS).

Deliveries are expected to run from 2024 through 2026. T-44 retirements will begin six months after the first T-54 delivery, the USN told
Janes
.

On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) helicopter facility in Tumakuru, Karnataka, and unveiled the light utility helicopter.
At the inauguration were also Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
The greenfield helicopter plant, situated on a 615-acre plot of land, was envisioned as a one-stop shop for all of the country’s helicopter requirements. It will initially build light-utility helicopters and is India’s largest helicopter manufacturing center (LUHs).

The LCA Navy demonstrated India’s capability to design, develop, construct, and operate indigenous aircraft carriers with home-grown fighter aircraft.
The Indian Navy on Monday achieved a significant milestone after the naval version of light combat aircraft successfully made its maiden landing on the indigenously-built aircraft carrier INS Vikrant. 
Terming it a historic milestone towards the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative, the Indian Navy said that the naval pilots had landed LCA (Navy) onboard INS Vikrant.

According to Asia Times, a daily published in Hong Kong, China is one of the few countries willing to increase its business ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In the middle of the year 2021, China opened its doors to a delegation of Taliban officials. As the US hinted at its impending withdrawal, the country demonstrated its willingness to recognize the Taliban. The Chinese company signed the 25-year oil extraction deal in Afghanistan in January 2023.
It is also possible that a state-owned Chinese firm may be awarded the contract to manage a copper mine there.

China’s 80-type 7.62mm general-purpose machine gun is a copy of the former Soviet Union’s PKM-style 7.62mm general-purpose machine gun. In the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, China seized the PKM general-purpose machine gun equipped by the Vietnamese army and decided to imitate it.
The imitation was successful, and the final result was the Type 80 general-purpose machine gun. The former Soviet Union developed the PKM general-purpose machine gun for battalions, companies, and platoons. 
The gun uses 7.62x54mm bullets, is fed by a belt, and has a total weight of 12.6 kg.

The UK’s newly acquired future Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance ship sails into Cammell Laird shipyard, Birkenhead, Liverpool, on 19 January. (Royal Navy)
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has purchased a second-hand commercial offshore patrol vessel from P&O Maritime Logistics’ subsidiary Topaz Energy and Marinefor conversion into a specialist ship dedicated to protecting the country’s critical subsea infrastructure.
The vessel, which is currently named MV Topaz Tangaroa, arrived at Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, Merseyside, for refitting on 19 January.

Luftwaffe Patriot air-defence systems deployed close to Zamość on the Polish-Ukrainian border have reached IOC. (Bundeswehr/Lars Koch)

Luftwaffe Patriot air-defence systems deployed to Poland have reached an initial operational capability (IOC), a German Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson told
Janes
on 4 February. Three Patriot firing units with around 350 military personnel had been deployed close to Zamość near the Polish-Ukrainian border, the spokesperson added.

Airborne signallers from the British Army’s 216 (Parachute) Signal Squadron, Royal Corps of Signals have started testing the new multi-mode radios (MMR) in forest environments.
The MMR capability test is being conducted as part of an exercise, Mercury Canopy, in the jungles of Belize.
According to the army, dense jungles are one of the most challenging environments for conducting radio communications activities, as the moist and dense vegetation absorbs all the radio waves and hinders the line-of-sight transmission.

The White House is studying the possibility of placing medium-range missiles on the territory of Japan, in particular hypersonic LRHW systems or a ground-based missile complex with a Tomahawk missile.
For the first time, the fact of such negotiations between the USA and Tokyo became known only on February 4, 2023. Japan agrees to place such missiles on its territory within the framework of the concept of joint confrontation against the USA.
 The island of Kushu “and other islands of the Japanese archipelago” is already mentioned as a place of probable dislocation.

Maria Wood, 24/7 Wall St.
The U.S. military has some of the fastest war planes on the planet. To determine the fastest war planes in the U.S. military, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed a list of U.S….