Missile Systems News

Britain's Trident nuclear-deterrent system misfired during a test last month, sending a missile crashing into the ocean off the Florida coast near the submarine that launched it, The Sun newspaper reported on Wednesday.The Ministry of Defense confirmed that an "anomaly" had occurred during the test but said Britain's "nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective".With Defense Secretary Grant Shapps on board the HMS Vanguard to witness the test, The Sun said, the first…

The Swedish-built Combat Boat 90 (CB 90) has established itself with military forces around the world as both a warrior and a workhorse. The 52-foot boats first entered service in 1991 as troop carriers with the Swedish Marines, which is still procuring them. There are more than 250 operating worldwide today.These rugged boats are optimized for high-speed / shallow-draft operations in and around Sweden’s many coastal islands, but they have also proven to be ideal for a variety of other applications and operating environments.The CB 90 is 52 feet long, with a draft of just 2 feet 7 inches.

Britain's new aircraft carrier the HMS Queen Elizabeth made a stop in Singapore on Monday, part of a move to reassert itself globally and boost its military presence in Asia amid rising competition among major powers.The Queen Elizabeth led a British carrier strike group in exercises with Singapore's military at the weekend, including naval maneuvers and simulated combat training with F-35B stealth fighters and F-16 jets.Britain plans to permanently deploy two warships in Asian waters…

Russia said on Monday it had successfully tested a Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile, a weapon President Vladimir Putin has touted as part of a new generation of missile systems without equal in the world.The defense ministry said in a statement that the missile had been fired from the Admiral Gorshkov, a warship located in the White Sea, and traveled at around seven times the speed of sound before hitting a ground target on the coastline of the Barents Sea more than…

President Vladimir Putin on Monday approved the creation of a Russian naval facility in Sudan capable of mooring nuclear-powered surface vessels, clearing the way for Moscow’s first substantial military foothold in Africa since the Soviet fall.The new facility, earmarked to be built in the vicinity of Port Sudan, will be capable of accommodating up to 300 military and civilian personnel and improve Russia’s ability to operate in the Indian Ocean, expanding its influence in Africa.Putin presided over a flagship Russia-Africa summit last year…

Sarkis Tatigian, who began his Navy career at the age of 19 during the Second World War, passed away earlier this week, leaving behind a nearly 78-year legacy of service to the Department of Defense.At the time of his death, Tatigian, the longest serving civil servant in the history of the DoD, was serving as Naval Sea Systems Command’s (NAVSEA) Small Business Advocate.“Mr. Tatigian truly lived a life dedicated to advocacy and the service of others,” said NAVSEA Executive Director, James Smerchansky.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that work will commence before the end of the year on the first of a series of new Type 31 frigates as part of the UK Government’s planned expansion of the Royal Navy fleet over the next 20 years. The new ships will replace Type 23 frigates currently in service and the construction of the first of these will be completed by 2023.The £1.25 billion contract for the new ships will be awarded later this year, supporting 2,500 jobs that include at least 150 new technical apprenticeships.

Iran has deployed a naval destroyer with long-range cruise missile systems to the Gulf of Aden to provide security for Iranian ships travelling through the region, state-run Press TV reported on Monday.The ship will be accompanied by a logistical vessel and a helicopter carrier, Press TV reported. The channel described it as Iran's most advanced destroyer.Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh

Iran has sold the oil from a tanker released by Gibraltar after weeks in the custody of British Royal Marines and the vessel's owner will decide on its next destination, IRIB news agency quoted an Iranian government spokesman as saying on Monday.Separately, Tehran - embroiled in a spiralling confrontation with Washington over U.S. sanctions meant to strangle Iranian oil exports - announced that it had deployed a naval destroyer with cruise missiles to help secure Iranian ships.The Iranian government spokesman did not identify the recipient of the oil carried by the Adrian Darya tanker. After Gibraltar freed the vessel on Aug. 18, the United States said it would take every action it could to prevent it delivering oil to Syria in contravention of U.S.

A Saudi vessel that had been due to load arms in France left the country's Le Havre port without its cargo of weapons and is now sailing towards Santander in Spain, according to ship tracking data, a local official and a lawyer.Two French human rights groups on Thursday sought to block the loading of weapons onto the ship through a legal filing, arguing the cargo contravened an international arms treaty.A French judge threw out their complaint but the Bahri-Yanbu moved off the coast of Le Havre shortly after. It had been at anchor 25 kilometres off the Le Havre, northern France, since Wednesday evening."The boat has left and without its cargo," Laurence Greig, a lawyer representing the ACAT rights group told Reuters.

At first glance from above it looks like any clean and neatly planned small town, complete with sports grounds, neat roads and large civic buildings. But the town is on Subi reef in the Spratlys archipelago of the hotly contested South China Sea and, regional security experts believe, could soon be home to China's first troops based in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. Private sector data analysis reviewed by Reuters shows Subi, some 1,200 km (750 miles) from China's coast, is now home to nearly 400 individual buildings – far more than other Chinese islands.

China and the Philippines will negotiate a military protocol to avoid maritime “miscalculations”, Manila’s defence minister said on Wednesday, following a brief standoff near a Philippine-occupied island in a disputed part of the South China Sea. Delfin Lorenzana said the Philippines tried to put up makeshift structures on a sand bar about 4 km (2.5 miles) off Thitu island in the Spratly archipelago in August, but China objected and sent ships to the area. President Rodrigo Duterte sought to defuse tensions by ordering troops to pull out. Construction was stopped. “We intend to sit down with China to draft and agree on a protocol to resolve immediately any incident,” he said, adding he hoped talks could start this year.

The nuclear icebreaker Lenin, the pride and joy of the Soviet Union's Arctic great game, lies at perpetual anchor in the frigid water here. A relic of the Cold War, it is now a museum. But nearly three decades after the Lenin was taken out of service to be turned into a visitor attraction, Russia is again on the march in the Arctic and building new nuclear icebreakers. It is part of a push to firm Moscow's hand in the High North as it vies for dominance with traditional rivals Canada, the United States, and Norway as well as newcomer China.

China's Defense Ministry said on Saturday it plans to return an underwater U.S. drone seized this week by a Chinese naval vessel in the South China Sea, but complained the United States was "hyping up" the incident. The drone was taken on Thursday, the first seizure of its kind in recent memory. It prompted the Pentagon to go public with a diplomatic complaint, and drew criticism from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to take a more aggressive approach in dealing with Beijing.

A Chinese warship has seized an underwater drone deployed by a U.S. oceanographic vessel in the South China Sea, triggering a formal diplomatic protest and a demand for its return, U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday. The drone was taken on Dec. 15, the first seizure of its kind in recent memory, about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines just as the USNS Bowditch was about to retrieve the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), officials said. "The UUV was lawfully conducting a military survey in the waters of the South China Sea," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's a sovereign immune vessel, clearly marked in English not to be removed from the water - that it was U.S. property," the official said.

JSC Admiralty Shipyards has finished building a series of six submarines for the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet, marked with a flag lifting ceremony on the large diesel-electric submarine Kolpino, which was transferred to the Russian Navy. The ceremony was attended by Chief of the Navy, Vladimir Korolev; president of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation, Alexei Rakhmanov; and CEO of JSC Admiralty Shipyards, Alexander Buzakov. “It is difficult to overestimate the significance of today's event for our team,” said Buzakov.

Russia is sharply upgrading the firepower of its Baltic Fleet in Kaliningrad by adding warships armed with long-range cruise missiles to counter NATO's build-up in the region, Russian media reported on Wednesday. There was no official confirmation from Moscow, but the reports will raise tensions in the Baltic, already heightened since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, and are likely to cause alarm in Poland and Lithuania which border Kaliningrad. The reported deployment comes as NATO is planning its biggest military build-up on Russia's borders since the Cold War to deter possible Russian aggression and will be seen as a riposte to that.

The Indian Ministry of Defence has directed future warship and submarine building orders be given only to domestic shipyards. The Navy has potential orders worth more than US $50 billion over the next 10 years for ship and submarine builds, said a Defence Ministry source. However, the $12 billion purchase of six conventional submarines with air independent propulsion, for which a request for proposals is being prepared, will still allow foreign participation in the design phase, although the subs will be built only by domestic shipyards, the MoD source added. As state-owned shipyards have their hands full, private sector yards, which have the facilities but fewer orders, are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries under the new directive, analysts said.

Poland is planning to get advanced cruise missiles for its submarines, the country’s defense minister has said, implying that the NATO member state is taking precautionary measures against a rising Russian threat, says a report in AP. Tomasz Siemoniak said that he has asked the United States about the availability of Raytheon's Tomahawk cruise missiles, an advanced system which Poland needs to equip its submarines with by 2030. “Last year, I decided that Polish vessels should be able (to launch cruise missiles) and we are speaking to all those able to deliver this kind of weapon, including the Americans,” Siemoniak said, adding that the procedures to initiate the submarine tender could be launched this year.

China could eventually deploy radar and missile systems on outposts it is building in the South China Sea that could be used to enforce an exclusion zone over the disputed territory, the U.S. military commander for Asia said on Wednesday. Admiral Samuel Locklear, speaking at a congressional hearing in Washington, described as "aggressive" the land reclamation and construction projects China has been conducting at eight military outposts in the South China Sea. The work involved "fairly massive" reclamation in the Spratley archipelago and upgrades to facilities in the Paracel Islands, he said. The building in the Spratleys included better berthing space for ships, as well as what was presumed to be an airfield on the Fiery Cross Reef, Locklear, head of the U.S.

The U.S. military commander for Asia warned that, China could eventually deploy radar and missile systems on outposts it is building in the South China Sea that could be used to enforce an exclusion zone over the disputed territory, according to a report in Reuters. Admiral Samuel Locklear described as aggressive the land reclamation and construction projects China has been conducting at eight military outposts in the South China Sea. Locklear said the artificial islands planned by China will provide the nation with basing and resupply for its large fleet of maritime security vessels and the country would be able to deploy missiles and radar on the islands.

Rolls-Royce congratulated the US Navy on the christening of the USS Zumwalt, the first of its new and highly sophisticated DDG 1000 multi-mission destroyer class of ship. The 600 foot long all-electric ship was christened by sponsors Ann Zumwalt and Mouzetta Zumwalt-Weathers at Bath Iron Works in Maine during a ceremony attended by thousands of people, including The Honorable Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, and other dignitaries. During the ceremony Don Roussinos, Rolls-Royce, President – Naval said: "Rolls-Royce congratulates the US Navy on the christening of its most technologically advanced – and first all-electric – multi mission destroyer class of ship.

In accordance with the agreed planning in the contract for the construction of a Damen SIGMA Frigate for the Indonesian Navy, the keel laying ceremony has taken place on April 16, 2014 at the PT PAL (Persero) Shipyard in Surabaya, Indonesia. The construction of the four modules that are going to be built at PT PAL (Persero) Shipyard Surabaya and the two modules that are being built in Vlissingen, are proceeding according to schedule. The construction and testing of the modules…