According to today’s Times of India, on January 1, India’s Defense Ministry’s Joint Secretary and Acquisitions Manager (Maritime Systems) signed a purchase agreement with Boeing’s Integrated Systems and in-country lead for eight P-8I Poseidon’s at a price of $2.1B(US), more than double the previous major US sale to India ($962M for six C-130J in 2007). …
RTB today from our Midwestern sojourn. Some news we will be posting on the morrow – in the meantime an update on the Vikramaditya (“Brave as the Sun”) via Barents Observer shows that it has been floated from dry dock (or beaching as was the case):
(h/t Russian Navy Blog) Cold iron – that time in a shipyard when the ship is completely dependant on shore-based services; electricity, water, steam, etc. as the plant (conventional or nuclear) is shut down. Of course, as is wont to be the case, that which is brought on from shore typically falls short of demand on…
Seems like there is interest on the part of the Indian Navy in the carrier capability of the Super Hornet that is part of the multi-national competition:Â Now Navy Wants Super Hornets Too (HINDUSTAN TIMES (INDIA)14 MAY 08) … Rahul Singh It is now sufficiently clear that the Indian Navy wants to be able to…
In 2001 India signed a contract with Russia to upgrade 10 Kilo class submarines to enable them to employ the Klub land attack cruise missile, The first of these subs, the INS Sindhuvijay, recently conducted pre-delivery tests with an Indian crew which included six test firings of the Klub. All six tests were considered failures…
Press the edge of the technological envelope and sometimes it snaps back and bites you. Promise the moon and fail to even deliver a scintilla (and oh yes, demand more money in the process) and the customer naturally gets a little testy. These themes are at the core of a couple of today’s news items – the first, dealing…
A bit more about China and the Kitty Hawk deal, plus some more below the fold about another failure of Russia’s Bulava SLBM and some other aspects of the Russian defense industry. Panda Bashing? On the heels of the story of the Chinese turning away the Kitty Hawk comes that of the two minesweepers…
Hawker Sea Hawk F.Mk.1-6 It may (but really shouldn’t) surprise some readers that the Royal Navy once boasted an air arm of flattops with airwings similar in composition to those of the US (mix of fighters, attack, ASW and of course, AEW) which saw action in various corners of the world. Alas, that heritage is…
