Georges Malbrunot, who writes for French newspaper Le Figaro, cited French intelligence sources. He posted on Twitter today that examples of the Israeli F-35 – two of which have been delivered to the country to date – took part in a raid over Syrian territory on the night of January 12-13. The mission saw them strike objectives around the capital, Damascus.Forget the talk about the F-35. The US software is a mess and if the Israeli's have worked out their own code that works like a champ it still doesn't matter (unless they sell it to Lockheed Martin) because the US won't allow them to sell it to other F-35 users.
According to Malbrunot, the F-35s targeted warehouses containing Russian-made Pantsir-S1 mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems that Israel feared could be delivered from Syria to Hezbollah forces operating in Lebanon. The warehouse was located at Mezzeh, a military airfield in Damascus.
During the same attack, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) also reportedly destroyed an S-300 SAM battery deployed near the Syrian presidential palace, on Mount Qassioun. According to the same unnamed French intelligence source quoted by Malbrunot, the F-35 aircraft finally overflew the palace of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, before returning to Israel.
Malbrunot provided a final quote from an unnamed soldier, explaining that: ‘With the Pantsir, Hezbollah ensures that the Israeli Air Force is almost totally unable to operate over Lebanon.’
Providing the account is true, it seems unlikely that Israel would admit the use of F-35s at this stage. However, in the past the IAF has been quick to put new assets into combat if required for specific missions – and the continued effort to prevent advanced weapons landing in Hezbollah hands may fit that remit.
‘With the Pantsir, Hezbollah ensures that the Israeli Air Force is almost totally unable to operate over Lebanon.’That's a crazy powerful statement.
Russia has released additional details of its latest Bumerang (Boomerang) family of wheeled 8x8 armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) that are the long-term replacement for the currently deployed BTR-80 8x8 amphibious armoured personnel carrier (APC).
The Bumerang chassis has the designation VPK-7829, with the infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) variant designated the K-17 and the APC model is designated the K-16 (while under development the vehicle was referred to as the Gilza, which is Russian for 'cartridge').
Trials with the first batch of six vehicles are still under way and an initial production order is expected soon to be placed with the Military Industrial Corporation (MIC), which is the prime contractor, sources at the recent International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi told Jane's .
As enemy air defenses improve, the Air Force may need a penetrating aerial refueling tanker that can move forward in conjunction with stealthy fifth-generation aircraft like the F-22 and F-35, Air Mobility Command head Gen. Carlton Everhart told reporters Tuesday.This is crazy on a plate! Is the idea of offensive warfare warping our procurement across the board? Are we biasing all of our requirements to operating in the enemy's back yard?
A study, slated to begin this year, will help the service decide the path forward, but Everhart said officials likely will skip past a KC-Y competition, either folding in modifications to the KC-46A or directly transitioning to the KC-Z.
“Once that study is done, then we’ll start programming, and we’re looking around the 2030 to 2035 area in the budget where it gains us the opportunity to be able to procure a new follow-on tanker,” he said during a round-table discussion at the Air Force Association conference.
That's a bare bones look at the future Indonesian Medium Tank's hull but I think the bigger issue is the future of USMC armor. I know! We've been over this ground before but I'm at a loss. I'd really like to know where leadership is with the issue.
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| Soldiers participate in a validation exercise, Jan. 31, 2017, at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany. The exercise ensures maneuver leaders at the troop level are proficient at integrating combat multipliers, and Soldiers are prepared to execute a variety of tactical missions. U.S. Army photo |
Sharing that they made significant progress with Reviews their Indonesian partners regarding the medium weight class tank project conducted under the auspices of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, Mr. Küçük continued, "Here, we are developing a tank in Approximately 32-35 tons of weight. The weight will be adjusted based on the armor configuration over it. We are developing a tank with the weight suitable for the field in the given region. The turret Directly over the tank was selected by the Indonesian Ministry of Defense. It has a 105 mm long turret and it has the turret's own systems over it. We aim to develop our own turret systems with the Turkish Defense Companies and we wish to initiate the serial production with our own turretsStory here.
