India added teeth to its submarine fleet and became the world’s sixth operator of a nuclear-powered submarine when Russia’s K-152 Nerpa nuclear-powered attack submarine was handed over to the Indian Navy at a ceremony in the far Eastern Primorye territory of the Russian Federation on January 23, 2012. The submarine, with NATO codename Akula-II, will be on a 10-year lease with Indian Navy till 2022 under a contract that was signed between the two countries [...]

We have been able to do away with night-blindness of 70 per cent of our tanks and they can fight 24X7,” Army Chief Gen V K Singh said recently. The Army has managed to fit night vision devices including thermal imagers and infra-red equipment in 70%  of its tank armada to counter “night blindness” and set aside more than Rs 5,000 crore for procurement of night vision devices, surveillance and battlefield support equipment. Night vision [...]

ITT Exelis has successfully installed and tested a pod-mounted, advanced self-defence electronic warfare system on F-16 aircraft operated by an international customer. The Airborne Integrated Defensive Electronic Warfare System, or AIDEWS (ALQ-211), completed several F-16 sorties and was tested against a wide variety of RF (radio frequency) threats. While this testing verified the effectiveness of the pod-mounted version, the system can be internally integrated as well. Either configuration offers next-generation integrated radar warning and electronic [...]

The fourth Airbus Military A330 MRTT multi-role tanker transport for the Royal Australian Air Force has been formally handed over to the service, leaving just one aircraft of its order still to be delivered. Known as the KC-30A in RAAF operation, this particular aircraft is the only one for the RAAF to have been converted from the basic A330 in Madrid, the others having been converted by Qantas Defence Services in Brisbane, Australia. It took [...]

The government on Wednesday cleared a proposal to equip the French Mirage ground attack aircraft with 500 air-to-air missiles that would be procured from a western consortium. The 950-million euro (about Rs. 6,600 crore) deal was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security at a meeting here chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The decision entails procuring the MICA interception and aerial combat fire and forget missile manufactured by MBDA, sources in the Defence Ministry [...]