Jane's Defence Weekly

Features

*Coming together: German defence industry
Germany's EU partners have already largely consolidated their industry according to their strategic interests. This has resulted in the creation of national champions such ...
29-Oct-2009

*The right call: close air support
NATO's troops use satellite radios and remote viewing terminals on a daily basis in Afghanistan to call in close air support (CAS), with its ...
29-Oct-2009

*Space on call: NCW part two - operationally responsive space
The level of ambition inherent in the US Department of Defense's (DoD) operationally responsive space (ORS) vision is quickly apparent by comparing its goals ...
23-Oct-2009

*Painful progress: Indonesia Country Briefing
The fall of Indonesia's President Suharto in 1998, after more than three decades in power, raised hopes of a new beginning not just for ...
16-Oct-2009

*Centre of attention: Regional overview, Central Asia
Nearly 20 years after gaining independence from the Soviet Union, the armed forces of the five Central Asian states - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan ...
12-Oct-2009

*Nordic shake-up: Scandinavian navies
Although the navies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are grouped and bound by a shared northern European history and geography, they cannot be ...
05-Oct-2009

*Protected markets: MRAPs
US forces operate in Afghanistan with swathes of space between each unit, their supply bases and their objectives. Similarly, many troops in Iraq must ...
25-Sep-2009

*In the line of fire: infantry weapons
With a handful of leading NATO nations starting to consider replacement programmes for their in-service 5.56 mm assault rifles, the issue of small-arm lethality ...
18-Sep-2009

*Taking flight: Norway's defence industry
Norway's Ministry of Defence (MoD) announcement in November 2008 that it had selected the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was, in many ...
11-Sep-2009

*Driving force: wheeled armoured vehicles
One of the major growth areas in the world armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) market in recent years has been in the design, development and ...
07-Sep-2009

*ATGWs still hit the spot: Anti-tank guided weapons
The anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) was originally introduced into service to replace the towed anti-tank guns that had become increasingly heavy and lacked the firepower...
07-Sep-2009

*Back on board: regenerating UK carrier strike capability
The UK's Joint Force Harrier (JFH) stood down from Operation 'Herrick' - the UK's contribution to international security and reconstruction in Afghanistan - in ...
03-Sep-2009

*Shifting strategies: The future of the USAF
The US military is undergoing a major shift in strategic thinking that has raised serious questions about the future direction of the US Air Force...
01-Sep-2009

*Tuning in to the task: radio modernisation
Transformation is relative, whether it applies to tactical radios, platforms or even combat boots. Capabilities considered passé by the military 'digiterati' - those nations that...
24-Aug-2009

*Finding Pole position: Country Briefing - Poland
On 4 August the last conscript left service with Poland's armed forces. The current all-volunteer force numbers around 95,500 personnel and is expected to grow...
24-Aug-2009

*Recovery position: defence budgets
The world economy has taken a beating and 2009 has been a difficult year so far. The fiscal reality of plummeting growth rates, soaring public...
17-Aug-2009

*Over land and sea: UK Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm
The UK Royal Navy (RN) is this year celebrating the centennial of naval aviation through a series of events and commemorations under the banner Fly...
14-Aug-2009

*Fuelling change: alternative fuels
The UK lost thousands of camels on the advance to Kandahar during the Second Afghan War in 1878-80, with a favoured enemy tactic being ...
07-Aug-2009

*The defence IT crowd: defence IT
Despite the pervasive nature of information technology (IT) in other areas of society, militaries across the globe are struggling with a range of issues ...
06-Aug-2009

*Mix and match: integrating UAVs into the battlespace
At the height of the US operation to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001, senior US politicians and military commanders in ...
31-Jul-2009

*Drive-by shooting: self-propelled artillery systems
While recent military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have necessitated the development and procurement of a variety of mine-protected armoured vehicles, there is still ...
24-Jul-2009

*Spatial awareness: addressing the space debris threat
Looking for a 10 cm piece of debris in the vast expanse of space out to geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) has been described as ...
17-Jul-2009

*Staying afloat: future of the Royal Navy
With a general election in the UK now less than a year away, all three armed services are starting to prepare and rehearse the ...
16-Jul-2009

*Joined-up thinking: NATO C4ISR
In its quest for greater coalition information sharing to meet the needs of operations in Afghanistan, NATO has embraced a 'build it and they ...
09-Jul-2009

*The Italian balancing job: Italy Country Briefing
In late July the Italian parliament will receive proposals from an inter-ministerial commission on the future make-up of the Italian armed forces. On the...
29-Jun-2009

*Wising up, moving out: withdrawal from Iraq
The withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities on 30 June closes a difficult chapter in the long story of US engagement in Iraq. ...
24-Jun-2009

*Change of the guards: European Land Systems Part 2 - the UK
Until very recently the British Army's vision was to maintain a heavy force built around the BAE Systems Challenger 2 main battle tank (MBT) ...
22-Jun-2009

*Reviewing the troops: New Zealand Country Briefing
New Zealand has always attempted to perform on the world stage at a level that belies the size of its defence force. The past ...
16-Jun-2009

*Reviewing the troops: New Zealand Country Briefing
New Zealand has always attempted to perform on the world stage at a level that belies the size of its defence force. The past ...
15-Jun-2009

*The JSF big bet: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter update
Even as a sputtering global economy has led much of the industrialised world to shy away from risky financial investments, the US Department of ...
05-Jun-2009

*Bolts from the blue: gunships
Useful almost as much for the psychological impact it has and the political show of force it projects as for the military capability it ...
05-Jun-2009

*Demining the deep: unmanned underwater vehicles
Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), in the form of tethered remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), have proven to be instrumental in ...
01-Jun-2009

*Special delivery: special forces insertion
Today's increasingly complex special forces (SF) operations around the world continue to require a wide range of overt and covert insertion capabilities, whether over ...
21-May-2009

*Israel Country Briefing: Hunkering down
A planned national civil defence exercise in June portends the future for an Israel genuinely concerned about the likelihood of a fast-approaching major conflict. ...
18-May-2009

*Afghanistan's critical year
Commander Mulahgul, the man in charge of Kandahar City's ninth and newest police substation, looks out over his area of jurisdiction from one of ...
12-May-2009

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