HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, officially opened a permanent UK military facility on an airbase in the United Arab Emirates on 6 March. (Crown Copyright)  The United Kingdom has opened a permanent military facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced on 6 March.  Named Donnelly Lines, the facility at Al Minhad Air Base (AMAB) was officially opened by the UK's Princess Anne and senior military and political dignitaries from both countries on the same day as the announcement.  “The siting of Don...

One of the first three F-16 Block 70 aircraft bound for Bahrain departs the Greenville production facility in the US on 6 March. (Lockheed Martin)  The first Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 Fighting Falcon combat aircraft for Bahrain departed the United States for the Gulf on 6 March.  The manufacturer announced the milestone, saying the first three of 16 jets had left the Greenville production facility in South Carolina bound for Bahrain.  To date, Lockheed Martin has produced five F-16 Block 70 jets for Bahrain, with the additional 11 in vari...

Royal Norwegian Air Force Lockheed Martin F-35 (F-35A) Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters operating over the High North. The Nordic countries have opened a CAOC to protect NATO's northern flank. (Royal Norwegian Air Force)  The Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden have opened a combined air operations centre (CAOC) aimed at protecting NATO's northern flank.  The Danish Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on 6 March that the new CAOC at Bodø in northern Norway is made up of personnel drawn from the air forces of the four Nordic...

A Tactical Resupply Vehicle-150 takes off from a Stern Landing Vessel to conduct a ship-to-ship experimentation as part of Project Convergence Capstone 4. (US Army 24th Theater Public Affairs Support)  The US Marine Corps' (USMC's) experimental Stern Landing Vessel (SLV) made an impact at one of its first joint experiments as one of three support vessels participating in the 2024 Project Convergence Capstone 4 event.  The vessel is meant as a bridging solution to get a better understanding of what the USMC wants for the US Navy's Landing Ship...

Savronik's latest high-speed SDR at the DIMDEX 2024 show in Doha. The system is designed to transmit real-time ISR information from aerial platforms to a dedicated ground station. (Janes/Ajay Shankar Pandey)  Turkish defence manufacturer Savronik unveiled the latest iteration of its High-speed Software-Defined Radio (SDR) at the DIMDEX 2024 show held in Doha from 4 to 6 March.  The latest SDR supports twice the data rate of its predecessor – from 137 Mbps to 274 Mbps – as well as the latest custom waveforms and encrypted solutions, depending...

Indian Army soldiers wearing a combination of Newndra's JaipurBelt and ArmMax exoskeletons while carrying ammunition and other load. (Newndra Innovations)  The Indian military has procured passive exoskeletons to support logistics and potentially combat operations, it has been confirmed to Janes.  The company that developed the exoskeletons – Newndra Innovations in Rajasthan – has provided two types of exoskeletons to the Indian Army, Indian Air Force (IAF), and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in the past few months.  Ganesh Ram...

A model displayed at the DIMDEX 2024 show held in Doha from 4 to 6 March shows the new Al-Sayliyah site of the Project 401 Special Forces Training Centre. (Janes/Jeremy Binnie)  Qatar's Project 401 Special Operations Training Centre revealed its second site during the DIMDEX 2024 show held in Doha from 4 to 6 March.  The new site adds to an existing 300 m range and simulator facility in the southwest corner of Camp Al-Sayliyah, west of Doha. It includes a second 300 m range, a 600 m range for sniper training, a 360° live-fire simulator, an Ai...

Albania used the occasion of the opening of the Kuçovë Air Base to showcase its newly acquired Bayraktar TB2 UCAVs. (Albanian MoD)  The Kuçovë Air Base (Baza Ajrore Kuçovë) in Albania was officially inaugurated as NATO's first tactical airbase in the western Balkans, with an opening ceremony on 4 March.  The work for transforming the Warsaw Pact-era MiG base into a modern facility to support NATO air transport, logistical support, and air policing missions across southeast Europe was first announced by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in Augu...

US marines conduct cold-weather training in preparation for NATO Exercise ‘Nordic Response 2024' in Setermoen. (US Marine Corps)  With the kick-off of Exercise ‘Nordic Response 2024' in February in the Norwegian Arctic, NATO is including Finland forces for the first time as a new official allied member and has transferred the Land Component Command headquarters for the exercise to the US Marine Corps' II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF), another first.  The component, including Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish division forces, will exercise...

CASIC is enhancing its Sky Hawk low-observable UAV for improved stealth characteristics and greater range. This graphic is based on the most recent imagery of the UAV, from February 2024. (Janes)  China's Tianying (Sky Hawk) tailless low-observable, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has started flight-testing following upgrades to its “main parameters”. According to Chinese state-owned media, the changes improve the UAV's “stealth” characteristics and “endurance”.  Janes has assessed video imagery of the Sky Hawk conducting a test flight aired by...

The US Army wants to add more robust cold weather survival equipment such as tents to the survival pod on its AH-64 Apache and other helicopters. (Janes/Meredith Roaten)    In the High North, fast winds can steer rotor blades while icy precipitation can reduce visibility. This makes it difficult to perform the 150 miles deep attack with Apache AH-64 helicopters at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) 24-02 training rotation held from 12 to 22 February at Fort Greely, Alaska, Major General Brian Eifler, commander of th...

Denmark is replacing its coastal air-defence radars, including the fixed long-range 3D RAT-31DL radar acquired back in 1995. (Selex ES)  Denmark has launched a EUR220 million (USD238.4 million) competition to replace its coastal radars in Bornholm and Skagen as well as on the Faroe Islands.  Three new Fixed Air Defence Radar (FADR) systems will be procured, each comprising a 3D phased-array Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR), Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) with all civilian and military interrogation modes, and Monitor and Control Units for...

Discussions on work share agreements for the sixth-generation GCAP fighter aircraft are scheduled to start in March 2024. (BAE Systems)  Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom are in talks on the preliminary design of the sixth-generation Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) aircraft, with discussions on the division of responsibilities for the overall programme expected to start in March.    A spokesperson for Japan's Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology Agency (ATLA) told   Janes   on 29 February that the three countries “have...

The Indian Army has been seeking to replace its ageing Maruti Gypsys and Mahindra MMs with new light vehicles since the early 2010s in a phased manner. As part of this, the service awarded a contract to Tata Motors to supply 3,192 4×4 Safari Storme vehicles (pictured above) in 2016. (Janes/Kapil Kajal)  The Indian Army has issued a tender to procure 4×4 ‘light vehicles' to perform general service (GS) roles.  According to a request for proposal (RFP) issued by the Indian Army on 29 February, the service intends to procure 1,054 light vehicles...

VSHORADS – pictured above from a DRDO test in March 2023 – is a tripod-launched missile system designed to strike moving aerial targets such as unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters, and fighter aircraft. (DRDO)  India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) test-fired two of its very short-range air-defence system (VSHORADS) missiles from a ground-based portable launcher, the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a press release on 29 February.  The tests were conducted on 28 and 29 February from the Integrated Test Range (...

Seen at a media event at the type's Wattisham Airfield home operating station, the AH-64E will soon be declared to be ‘operationally ready' by the British Army. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)  The British Army is to declare its Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopter force to be “operationally ready” in the coming days, a senior official said on 28 February.  Speaking at the IQPC International Military Helicopter (IMH) 2024 conference in London, the official who was presenting under the Chatham House Rule said that with 38 of 50 remanufactur...

The first KC-130J for the Luftwaffe departs the Marietta production facility in the US, bound for the joint Franco-German C-130 squadron in France. (Lockheed Martin)  The first Lockheed Martin KC-130J tanker-transport aircraft for the Luftwaffe was delivered to the joint Franco-German C-130 air-transport squadron at Évreux-Fauville Air Base in northern France on 28 February.  The first of three German KC-130Js departed the company's Marietta production facility in Georgia for the ferry flight to France, where it joined three Luftwaffe C-130J-...

CASIC is enhancing its Sky Hawk low-observable UAV for improved stealth characteristics and greater range. (Janes)  China's Tianying (Sky Hawk) tailless low-observable, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has started flight-testing following upgrades to its primary parameters. According to Chinese state-owned media, the changes improve the UAV's stealth characteristics and endurance.  Developed by the No 3 Research Institute of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), the Sky Hawk has been designed to conduct stealth-based reco...

Leonardo and Bell are to leverage their respective AW609 (pictured) and V-22/V-280 tiltrotors for the NATO NGRC programme. (Leonardo)  Leonardo and Bell signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on 29 February geared at evaluating tiltrotor options for the NATO Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC) programme.  The European and US companies will pool their combined tiltrotor knowledge on the AW609 and V-22 Osprey/V-280 Valor respectively, as they look to secure the fifth concept study of the NGRC effort to develop the next generation o...

Seen at a media event at the type's Wattisham Airfield home operating station, the AH-64E will soon be declared to be IOC by the British Army. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)  The British Army is to declare its Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopter force to be “operationally ready” in the coming days, a senior official said on 28 February.    Speaking at the IQPC International Military Helicopter (IMH) 2024 conference in London, the official who was presenting under the Chatham House Rule said that with 38 of 50 remanufactured airframes now...