Jane's Defense News

The Colombian Navy commissioned a new hydrographic multipurpose vessel into service on 14 June. Originally built as an offshore supply vessel (OSV) by Chinese shipyard Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding, ARC Caribe was procured by Colombia in December 2017 and modified to meet navy requirements. While the

The Colombian Navy launched its fifth amphibious landing vessel (BDA), ARC Bahia Colombia , in Cartagena on 15 June. ARC Bahia Colombia is the sixth BDA and built by Colombia’s state-owned shipbuilding company COTECMAR and the fifth of the MK II series . Honduras received another version of

AT A FEDERAL court in Huntsville in the state of Alabama in the United States on 20 June, a judge sentenced a militant - identified as 23-year-old Aziz Sayyed - to 15 years in prison and a lifetime of supervision following the granting of a plea deal, Rocket City Now reported. Sayyed pleaded guilty

Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) has been selected as the preferred partner to supply its SDxR and SVFuA communications systems to the German Army when it supports NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) in 2023, industry sources have revealed. Jane’s understands that the company

The Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace Joint Strike Missile (JSM) has entered its final phase of development following the successful conclusion of its last qualification flight test (FTM-5) in March this year. Pending a Final Design Review in June, development of the missile is scheduled for

The Russian Navy’s first Ivan Gren-class (Project 11711E) large landing ship was commissioned at the service’s Baltiysk naval base in Kaliningrad on 20 June. Ivan Gren will be based with the the Northern Fleet. It is the first of two vessels in the class being built by Yantar Shipyard in

AT A FEDERAL court in Huntsville in the state of Alabama in the United States on 8 March, 23-year-old Aziz Sayyed pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, Rocket City Now reported. Sayyed planned to detonate an

The United States has criticised a new offensive by pro-government forces in southwest Syria that appears to involve Russian forces. US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told reporters on 21 June that the de-escalation agreement announced in July 2017 had saved lives and facilitated

A PUBLISHER of the weekly Trends and Times newspaper was shot dead and his driver wounded by unidentified militants while he was travelling in his vehicle in Panabo City in the Philippines' Davao del Norte province on 7 June, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. The vehicle was passing by Panabo

The US Air Force (USAF) is looking to quadruple the weight of bombs that the Boeing B-52H Stratofortress is able to carry externally. According to a request for information (RFI) issued on 21 June, Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) is seeking a new external weapons pylon that will take the

The US Navy (USN) is aiming to expand at-sea demonstrations of three-dimensional (3D) printing of spare parts in 2019 to determine if it should install such systems on its vessels. The USN will identify which ships will be appropriate candidates for testing this technology, Nathan Desloover, Naval

The US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is seeking to commercialise the use of nano-galvanic aluminium-based powder as a source of hydrogen for fuel cells. In January 2017, a team of ARL scientists working with the powder developed a method for the rapid and spontaneous hydrolysis of water. Since

The Australian Army has partnered with the government’s Defence Innovation Hub to award contracts to local industry to develop new military capabilities, the Australian Department of Defence (DoD) said on 21 June. In a press release the DoD said three new ‘innovation contracts’ -

Harris Corporation has introduced new command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) modules for its hC2 battlefield management system (BMS). The new capability will bring increased communications and situational awareness to commanders on the battlefield, Harris said in a

Navantia is developing a new version of its land-based multi-sensor surveillance system called the Vehículo de Vigilancia Terrestre (VVT-Land Surveillance Vehicle) for the intelligence units of the Spanish Army and showcased a prototype at the Eurosatory 2018 exhibition in Paris. The company

The US Marine Corps (USMC) has begun fielding a new helmet-mounted sight that will help marines identify potential buried explosive devices, find hidden objects within foliated areas, and safely conduct tasks that require depth perception. The Corps began fielding the initial capability of the

US firm MAG Aerospace has acquired intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) integration firm North American Surveillance Systems (NASS). Terms of the deal, announced on 18 June, were not disclosed. Florida-based NASS integrates ISR systems onto fixed- and rotary-wing platforms, and

The French Ministry of Defence (MoD) unveiled an additional special operations vehicle (SOV) at Eurosatory in Paris. A representative of the Section Technique de l'Armée de Terre (STAT) told Jane’s that two 4×4 Fardier SOV technology demonstrators had been manufactured ahead of a

Richard Fowler, Paris Israel’s BlueBird Aero Systems has displayed a cargo variant of its ThunderB tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the Eurosatory 2018 defence exhibition in Paris. The new variant can carry a cargo payload of up to 4 kg in two capsules that can be fitted under

UK engineering group Horiba Mira has unveiled the Centaur, a mid-sized multirole unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), at the Eurosatory 2018 exhibition in Paris. Centaur was developed as a lightweight 6×6 platform that can mount various payloads. “Having spoken to a number of different