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February23, 2005 - Army Guide >> |
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Russia to Supply Tunguska-M1 Air Defence Systems to Morocco A contract for supply of six Tunguska-M1 systems to Morocco has been signed and will come into force in the nearest future. This will be the first delivery of Russian-made weapons to Morocco. The cost of the contract is believed to be around $100,000,000. The Tunguska-M1 air defence system is fitted with both guns and missiles and is intended to protect armoured and mechanised infantry units against low-flying fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, some types of cruise missiles as well as for defeating light armoured ground targets and personnel of the enemy. The system can operate under conditions of intensive fire and radio-electronic, optical and optronic jamming. One more advantage of the system consists in the fact that it is fitted with both guns and missiles. The system can engage targets by means of anti-aircraft guided missiles at heights of 15 to 3,500 metres and at distances of 2,500 to 10,000 metres, as well as using its 30 mm gun to engage targets at heights of up to 3,000 m and at distances of 200 to 4,000 metres. MBDA and Bharat Dynamics Limited Strengthen Cooperation at Aero India 2005 MBDA and Bharat Dynamics Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the development and production of a further version of Milan anti-tank missile named Milan ER or Indan. The agreement was signed during Aero India 2005 exhibition at Bangalore, India. The new Milan ER anti-tank weapon system will be available to the French and Indian armies as well as to export customers worldwide. The portable Indan/Enhanced Milan will be used, like its predecessors, by the infantrymen. Bharat Dynamics will use the expertise gained during the license production of Milan 2 missile system, which started in 1981. Indan/Milan ER features anti-jamming capability and extended range while retaining the wire-based guidance to meet the requirements specified by both India and France, which are the launch customers for the weapon. MBDA and Bharat anticipated that they will set up a joint venture in the latter half of 2005. Ultimately, that joint venture could extend cooperation between the companies to the Aster and Mica families of missiles. Actually, both companies are actively promoting the ground-based Mica vertical launch missile for the Indian Air Force Low Level Quick Reaction Missile (LLQRM) requirement. VL Mica additional applications include deployment in small-sized ships to protect them from the wide range of air threats as well as its well-known air-to-air missile equipped with Infrared or RF seeker. Putin Informed Sharon about the Sale of Missiles to Syria According to the Israeli publishing house Ha'aretz, Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Russia intends to sell some air defence systems to Syria. 'We are worried by this decision and believe that it should not have been taken', said Sharon. 'We are discontented by the fact that weaponry is sold to Syria, especially up-to-date weaponry, which may later be handed over to terrorist organisations'. Israel is strongly opposed to the sale in question. Sharon has repeatedly warned Putin that sale of missiles to Syria can jeopardise Israel's security, as they may finally turn out in the hands of fighters of the Lebanese Hizbullah terror organisation supported in Syria. In his letter to Sharon, Putin emphasises that the matters concerns missile systems based on mobile platforms rather than portable missile systems being used by terrorists, therefore the systems in question can pose no threat to Israel. Besides, according to Putin, Syria can deploy the missiles so that the balance of forces in the region will be retained. No information is unveiled so far as to what kind of missiles will be sold. Previously it was believed that Syria would receive Russian SA-18 (Igla) missile systems. Some Israeli experts thought that Russia would sell to Syria upgraded Iglas installed on mobile platforms. France Loses Its Positions in the Arms Market France is losing its positions in the world's arms market, being forced out by American, Russian and Israeli companies, says the Internet publication Expatica.com. According to Jean-PAul Pani, an employee of the Department for Procurement/Sale of Arms of the French Ministry of Defence, although the French still keep their third place in the world (after the USA and great Britain) as to scope of their weaponry sales, the French segment of the world's defence market is shrinking. This conclusion has been made by the Ministry's experts who studied the changes in the market in 2002-2003. 'The American export scope is now as large as it has never been before. Israel is quite aggressive in penetrating into the arms market', he said and also added that Russia also is quite busy looking for potential clients far beyond its traditional market in Eastern Europe. According to the data given by the employee, between the years 1994 and 2003 France retained around 12 per cent of the market. The country's annual profit of arms sales amounted to around ?‚¬5 billion. However, in 2002 the profit reduced down to ?‚¬4.4 billion, while in 2003 ??“ down to ?‚¬4.2 billion. Pani added that the USA, Great Britain, France, Russia and Germany, if taken all together, carry out 90 per cent of the world's arms sales. In so doing, the first three countries retain the three thirds of the whole market. The remaining 10 percent are shared by Israel, China, Italy, Sweden and South Africa. The largest clients of French companies include Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Great Britain, Pakistan and India. China also belongs to this list, however, according to the existing embargo, only non-lethal weapons can be supplied to China. It is arguably because of France's difficulties in the international arms market that Paris is quite busy lobbying in the European Parliament the lifting of 'Chinese embargo', which the European Union plans to lift in the summer of 2005. However, the United States state an apprehension that this will enable the People's Republic of China to purchase the newest weapons and to use them against the neighbouring Taiwan (the Americans support Taiwan, while the Chinese believe that this island must be a part of the People's Republic of China). Washington's opposition to the lifting of the embargo is actively supported by Japan, which is sure that the European Union's decision of the kind can destabilise the situation throughout Eastern Asia. France has already put forward a number of arguments which are supposed to persuade the sceptics that the lifting of the embargo is not so tragic as apprehended by the Americans. In particular, the French believe that China will not buy large numbers of weapons in Europe as, on the one hand, it has already bought a lot of modern weapons in Russia, and, on the other hand, the largest European defence-related companies will most probably impose some limitations themselves, because they have too much business interests in the United States and they will not risk their USA-related contracts by concluding defence-related contracts with China. Besides, according to French Defence Minister Michel Alliot-Marie, the lifting of the embargo on arms supplies to China will entail the slowing-down of defence-related scientific research work in China. The Defence Minister has said that 'the lifting of the embargo is a better protection that the retaining of it", as the ban forces the Chinese scientists to develop the kinds of weapons which China is not allowed to purchase. |
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February23, 2005 - Army Guide >> |
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