said: Все сообщения за 14 Октября 2005 года

Jane’s Defence Weekly
12.10.2005
Малайзия склоняется к закупке систем ПВО у Китая

Согласно источникам в Куала-Лумпур, состояние переговорного процесса по поставкам ЗРК для ПВО Малайзии дает основание полагать, что Малайзия вероятнее всего отдаст предпочтение ЗРК китайского производства.
В тендере участвуют российские ЗРК 9К37 «Бук» и китайские KS-1/KS1A. Согласно условиям тендера, должно быть поставлено достаточное количество ЗРК для укомплектования хотя бы одного (army battalion) ВС Малайзии в сроки с 2006г по 2010.
Если Китайская сторона выиграет тендер, то это будет первая идентифицированная экспортная поставка KS-1/KS1A.
ВС Малайзии также намерены приобрести ПЗРК. Предложение Китайской Национальной Корпорации по Импорту и Экспорту Точных Технологий (China’s National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation ) включает пункт, в соответствие с которым, в случае покупки Малайзией ЗРК KS-1/KS1A , китайская компания предоставит ей технологию производства своего ПЗРК FN-6.
Россия предлагает поставить технологию производства своего ПЗРК 9К38 «Игла» либо новый ПЗРК «Игла-С» по отдельному контракту.
На данный момент на вооружении малазийских сил ПВО состоят исключительно ПЗРК, такие как британские комплексы Starburst, Javelin, пакистанский Anza Mk II и несколько 9К38 «Игла».
Кроме того, в 2002 г был заключен контракт с компанией MBDA на поставку r 2005 году 15 единиц ЗРК Jernas, каждая из которых будет оснащена 9 ракетными пусковыми установками и системой оптического целеуказания. К тому же по этому контракту MBDA обязалась поставить 9 ЗРК Rapier Mk II, так же как 3 РЛС кругового обзора Dagger и 3 РЛС слежения Blindfire производства компании Alenia Marconi Systems.
Помимо того, Малайзия рассматривает возможность покупки у Китая 2 кораблей. Точная информация по поводу этого намерения неизвестна, однако, по непроверенным источникам это будут учебно-тренировочные суда.

China favoured for Malaysian air- defence solution
Robert Karniol JDW Asia Pacific Editor
Kuala Lumpu

Current talks aimed at bolstering Malaysia's ground-based air-defence capabilities indicate that China is favoured to make a breakthrough defence export sale, according to sources in Kuala Lumpur.

China's KS-1/KS-1A low-to high-altitude surface-to-air missile (SAM) system is competing for the contract with the Russian-made 9K37 Buk-1 (SA-11 'Gadfly') low- to high-altitude SAM system. The requirement is thought to involve sufficient systems to equip at least one army battalion and should be fulfilled during the Ninth Malaysia Plan, covering 2006-2010.

If the deal is concluded with China it would be the country's first known export order for the KS-1/KS-1A.

The Malaysian Army is also looking to strengthen its short-range air-defence capabilities with a new man-portable system. China's National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corporation has offered a technology transfer that would allow Malaysia to produce locally its FN-6 low-altitude SAM system if Kuala Lumpur buys the KS-1/KS-1A, as the company produces both. Russia is offering the Igla (SA-18 'Grouse') or new Igla-S variant low-altitude SAM system under a separate deal.

Malaysia's ground-based air-defence capabilities are limited to low-altitude systems. These include the UK-made Starburst and Javelin, together with the Anza Mk II from Pakistan and some 'SA-18' Iglas.

Furthermore, a contract with MBDA of Europe for the Jernas SAM system was signed in 2002 with initial deliveries due in late 2005. The order includes 15 fire units, each comprising nine launchers with a day/night optical tracker, and eight Rapier Mk 2 SAMs in the ready-to-launch position. There are also three Alenia Marconi Systems (subsequently BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies) Dagger surveillance radars and three Blindfire tracking radars.

Bilateral relations have been cordial in recent years but they have yet to extend to defence sales. Aside from the current talks on air-defence systems, Malaysia is exploring the acquisition of two naval ships from China. Details have yet to emerge but sources say it probably involves training ships.

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может оффтоп, но типа в тему из свежего Джейнс дифенс викли (на аглицком)

JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY - OCTOBER 12, 2005

THE SKUNK WORKS - SHAPESHIFTER
Nick Cook JDW aerospace consultant
London

The fortunes of the Skunk Works have changed immensely since the turn of the century. JDW aerospace consultant Nick Cook has the inside story

·SKUNK WORKS SAYS:

·There will be two or three generations of UCAV before industry gets it right

·UCAVs need 'to break the paradigm currently established by manned fighters'

·The blending of survivability and speed will become hugely important over the next decade

One of the distinct advantages of a company hidden from outside scrutiny is that no individual, beyond those with inside knowledge, can tell whether it is going through good times or bad - generating big profits or huge losses. At Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP) unit, better known as the Skunk Works, life in the shadows has come with the territory - territory that the Skunk Works carved out for itself more than 60 years ago.

Since its inception in 1943, the Skunk Works has been responsible for some of aviation's most pioneering technical achieve- ments. It built the prototype of the US's first operational jet fighter, the XP-80, and went on to create the Central Intelligence Agency's U-2 spy plane, the A-12/SR-71 Blackbird, which is still the world's fastest air-breathing aircraft 15 years after its retirement, the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter and a host of other leading-edge aerospace developments, some of which remain 'unacknowledged'.

For the past 15 years, since the last F-117A rolled off the production line at the Skunk Works' engineering and manufacturing hub at Palmdale, California, a thousand or more workers have reported to work there every day. Yet, for all their efforts and in all that time, the Skunk Works has officially rolled out a scant handful of 'products': two prototype YF-22s, the forerunner of the F/A-22 Raptor; two DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), cancelled at the prototype stage; two X-35 demonstrator vehicles, progenitors of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF); the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) in a collaborative design effort with Lockheed Martin's Orlando-based missiles unit; and part of the X-33 reusable, single-stage-to-orbit space launch vehicle, which was cancelled in 2001.

Glory days

Moreover, since the glory days of the 1980s, when the stealth revolution was in full swing with the initial secret deployment of the F-117A, 59 of which were eventually delivered to the US Air Force (USAF), the Skunk Works has not had an easy time of it. In 2000, it lost its status as a separate division within Lockheed Martin and was placed under the aegis of the newly created 'Aeronautics' sector, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas.

By the turn of the century, at a time when the Skunk Works needed to be firing on all cylinders in the battle against Boeing for the JSF, morale was reported to be at a particular low. In 2001, Lockheed beat Boeing to the JSF contract - a huge coup for the corporation - but the Skunk Works then faced the problem of what to do next. Classified spending had declined markedly under the Clinton administration and Boeing had gone some way to atoning for its JSF defeat by winning the X-45A unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator contract.

Boeing and Northrop Grumman are now competing against each other with the X-45C and the X-47B for the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) programme: a chance for the winner to establish the UCAV in what could be the biggest step-change in aviation development since the advent of the jet engine.

It seems inconceivable that the entity that established itself as one of the foremost aerospace pioneers of the last half-century should end up on the sidelines of the UAV and UCAV revolution, yet, on the face of it, this is where the Skunk Works is: on the outside, looking in. For the past few years, as J-UCAS has gathered momentum, ADP officials have let it be known that the Skunk Works has not been standing still - that there are advanced UAV/UCAV concepts on the drawing board at ADP, many of which are under government consideration. A number of these may have progressed further in the 'black' world - there are persistent rumours that they have. However, it was only in June, at the Paris Air Show, that the Skunk Works/ADP was able to provide hard details of a real, live project: the Morphing UAV.

The Morphing UAV is a demonstrator for an unmanned aircraft that, in its developed form, can span intelligence-gathering and attack missions by changing its shape in flight. To date, in the high-end, sophisticated unmanned aircraft market, UAVs and UCAVs broadly fall into two camps: high- and medium-altitude long-endurance types for surveillance, and UCAVs for attack. With its ability to 'morph' from an extended-wing, loitering configuration to a squat, agile, high dash-speed platform - a transition that takes place in less than 30 seconds - the Morphing UAV allows a single vehicle to perform multiple mission profiles. To reinforce ADP's message and add weight to its conviction that the UAV/UCAV market is still in transition, and thus still open to competition, the Skunk Works' Vice President and General Manager, Frank Cappuccio, went to the Paris Air Show to convey it personally.

A different set of rules

Cappuccio is bound by a different set of rules from most engineering management executives because of what the Skunk Works does. There are times, for example, when the US government prevents him from travelling abroad. However, Cappuccio's message in Paris was clear. "I personally believe there's going to be two or three generations of UAVs before we [the aerospace and defence industry] get it right," he told JDW in an extensive, exclusive interview.

"The question is often asked: 'Why isn't Lockheed playing (in the market)?' The answer is: we think we have time. We think we have time to watch the market develop. We think Boeing and Northrop Grumman are doing a very good job of pushing the envelope on where the technology can go, but we haven't seen that capabilities document that really says: This is what a J-UCAS should do, this is what an F/A-22 should do and this is what a JSF should do'."

Cappuccio believes such a document will materialise between now and 2008.

"I think the Morphing UAV is going to result in a technology base that permits the US government to have some options," he said. The key to morphing, which is being driven by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Morphing Aircraft Structures programme, lies in the development of shape-changing actuation systems built into the wing-skin material of the UAV. The material itself has 'shape memory', which permits the wing to relax and contract when the skin is energised with an electrical current. One option the technology opens up, Cappuccio says, is the ability to deploy UAVs and UCAVs on to submarines instead of aircraft carriers. Through DARPA, ADP signed a contract in March to look at developing the Morphing UAV to meet the US Navy's embryonic Multi-Purpose UAV (MPUAV) programme: a plan, if the technology can be mastered at the right price and if the need is proven, that could lead to shape-changing UAV/UCAVs being launched and recovered from converted former intercontinental ballistic missile-carrying submarines.

Cruise missile philosophy

The Skunk Works is convinced, too, that the per unit cost of UAVs and UCAVs, which has risen exponentially over the past decade as ever greater sophistication is demanded of them, has to be addressed directly if they are to deliver the benefits that are claimed for them over manned aircraft. Boeing's J-UCAS proposal, the X-45C, now under construction in preparation for the commence…

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