Latest news with #NavalNews
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Yahoo
Photo reveals Ukrainian sea drone that downed Russian Su-30 fighter
The first image of the Ukrainian uncrewed surface vessel (USV) that shot down a Russian Su-30 fighter jet over the Black Sea has been posted by Naval News, a military news platform focused on global naval developments. The vessel was identified as a new Magura V7 drone, equipped with two US-supplied AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. This marks the first time in history that a surface drone has successfully brought down a combat aircraft. Source: Mezha Media, a technology and IT news platform within Ukrainska Pravda's holding company Details: The Magura V7 is an upgraded version of the previously used Magura V5, which had been deployed in attacks on Russian naval targets. The V7 is approximately 8 metres long—compared to the 5.5 metres of the V5—and features enhanced design modifications that enable it to operate in rough sea conditions. The drone is equipped with advanced communication antennas and navigation sensors to maintain control over extended distances. Two AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles are mounted on special launch rails on the drone and are believed to be capable of being elevated for launch. These missiles reportedly have a maximum range of up to 10 km. Last year, Ukraine's Defence Intelligence stated that Magura drones also use Soviet-era R-73 air-to-air missiles with infrared homing systems. This successful engagement shows that the Magura V7 is not only effective in naval warfare but has now become a serious aerial threat to Russian forces, marking a new chapter in drone-based combat. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US deploys ‘ship killer' missiles near Taiwan for first time
The US has deployed anti-ship missiles to the Luzon Strait, near Taiwan, for the first time as part of annual military drills designed to prevent naval invasions. The Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction Systems (NMESIS) are being airlifted to 'multiple islands' in the Philippines' Batanes island chain, less than 120 miles from southern Taiwan, Naval News reported. Described as 'ship killers', the NMESIS are ground-based missile launchers that are designed to strike against ships at distances of over 115 miles. The US unit responsible for the missiles claimed that the systems were specifically requested by Manila amid rising tensions with China after drills last year. The Balikatan exercises, which will run for three weeks, will include about 9,000 US soldiers and 5,000 Filipino troops. Several countries, including Britain, France and Australia, are expected to join as observers. Along with the anti-ship missiles, the US will also showcase HIMARS rocket launchers and the G/ATOR radar system, which is able to detect drones, cruise missiles and rockets. Lieut Gen James Glynn, who is directing the US side of the exercises, described the drills as 'full battle tests', which include preventing sea invasions, defending against missile threats and sinking a decommissioned Philippine vessel. He added that the tests were intended to 'take into consideration all of the regional security challenges that we face today, beginning in the South China Sea'. Tensions have been rising around the South China Sea as China increasingly asserts its dominance over disputed territory. The 160-mile-wide Luzon Strait is a key part of the puzzle in connecting the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and serves as a gateway for China's navy. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, travelled to Manila in March and pledged to work with allies to increase deterrence against China's aggression in the South China Sea. The proximity of the Batanes islands to Taiwan also raises questions over the islands' role in the ongoing drills. China has claimed Taiwan as its own sovereign territory, which the government in Taipei rejects. Beijing's rapidly growing navy has been increasing drills around Taiwan and practising landing heavy military equipment on shores nearby. Maj Gen Francisco Lorenzo, the exercise director for the Philippines, said the drills would be likely to 'deter the conflict near Taiwan' but were mainly to serve as a deterrent against 'coercion or invasion to our country'. Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, accused the Philippines of choosing to bring in 'strategic and tactical weapons to the detriment of regional strategic stability and regional economic prospects'. He urged 'relevant sides' not to provoke the 'Taiwan question' and warned that 'those who play with fire will perish by it'. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
US deploys ‘ship killer' missiles near Taiwan for first time
The US has deployed anti-ship missiles to the Luzon Strait, near Taiwan, for the first time as part of annual military drills designed to prevent naval invasions. The Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction Systems (NMESIS) are being airlifted to 'multiple islands' in the Philippines' Batanes island chain, less than 120 miles from southern Taiwan, Naval News reported. Described as 'ship killers', the NMESIS are ground-based missile launchers that are designed to strike against ships at distances of over 115 miles. The US unit responsible for the missiles claimed that the systems were specifically requested by Manila amid rising tensions with China after drills last year. The Balikatan exercises, which will run for three weeks, will include about 9,000 US soldiers and 5,000 Filipino troops. Several countries, including Britain, France and Australia, are expected to join as observers. Along with the anti-ship missiles, the US will also showcase HIMARS rocket launchers and the G/ATOR radar system, which is able to detect drones, cruise missiles and rockets. Lieut Gen James Glynn, who is directing the US side of the exercises, described the drills as 'full battle tests', which include preventing sea invasions, defending against missile threats and sinking a decommissioned Philippine vessel. He added that the tests were intended to 'take into consideration all of the regional security challenges that we face today, beginning in the South China Sea'. Tensions have been rising around the South China Sea as China increasingly asserts its dominance over disputed territory. The 160-mile-wide Luzon Strait is a key part of the puzzle in connecting the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and serves as a gateway for China's navy. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, travelled to Manila in March and pledged to work with allies to increase deterrence against China's aggression in the South China Sea. The proximity of the Batanes islands to Taiwan also raises questions over the islands' role in the ongoing drills. China has claimed Taiwan as its own sovereign territory, which the government in Taipei rejects. Beijing's rapidly growing navy has been increasing drills around Taiwan and practising landing heavy military equipment on shores nearby. Maj Gen Francisco Lorenzo, the exercise director for the Philippines, said the drills would be likely to 'deter the conflict near Taiwan' but were mainly to serve as a deterrent against 'coercion or invasion to our country'. Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, accused the Philippines of choosing to bring in 'strategic and tactical weapons to the detriment of regional strategic stability and regional economic prospects'. He urged 'relevant sides' not to provoke the 'Taiwan question' and warned that 'those who play with fire will perish by it'.
Asia Times
22-04-2025
- Science
- Asia Times
Japan's railgun ready to zap Chinese hypersonic missiles
Japan's ship-mounted railgun offers a cost-effective and rapid response to potential missile saturation threats by utilizing electromagnetic energy to launch projectiles at hypersonic velocities. This month, Naval News reported that the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) disclosed the deployment of its advanced railgun aboard the test ship JS Asuka, marking a significant milestone in electromagnetic weaponry. Developed by Japan's Ground Systems Research Center (GSRC) under the Ministry of Defense's Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), railgun research began in 2016 and achieved its first shipboard firing test in October 2023. The weapon system demonstrates enhanced muzzle velocity, reaching 2,000 meters per second, and stability for firing up to 120 rounds, overcoming challenges of rail erosion and projectile flight stability. Current research aims to transition to a complete 'gun system,' integrating continuous firing, flight stability improvements and a tailored fire control system. Japan's railgun could bolster naval missile defenses, provide new options for land-based artillery such as counter-battery fire and coastal strikes, and theoretically contribute to intercepting specific high-speed missile threats. However, a miniaturized power supply remains pivotal for practical deployment. Japan also collaborates with France and Germany's Research Institute of Saint-Louis to advance railgun technologies, reflecting international scientific cooperation. This breakthrough positions Japan's railgun as a cornerstone for future defense systems, promising technological and operational maturity through FY 2026. Unlike the US Navy, which halted its railgun project in July 2021 because of significant power, overheating and rail wear challenges, Japan continues to pursue the technology to address the possible shortcomings of missile-based defense and strike capabilities. Missiles offer powerful long-range strike options but are extremely expensive and limited by shipboard magazine capacity. US Navy destroyers and cruisers carry only 96–122 missiles in their Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells. During operations against Houthi rebel forces from 2023 to 2025, the US expended hundreds of difficult-to-replace, multi-million-dollar missiles to down relatively cheap drones and ballistic missiles, highlighting an unsustainable cost curve and dangerously shallow magazines. Japan faces a similar problem. In December 2022, Kyodo News reported that Japan had only 60% of the interceptor missile stockpiles deemed necessary for national defense. Underscoring the missile threat, Newsweek reported in March 2025 that China has significantly increased the number of its missiles capable of hitting Japan. According to the report, new bases in China's Jilin and Shandong provinces house three types of missiles—the DF-17 medium-range ballistic missile and the CJ-10 and CJ-100 ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM), which can penetrate Japan's existing missile defenses. Beyond limited magazine depth, the inability to reload VLS cells at sea presents another major constraint. In a March 2024 article for the Georgetown Studies Review, Tyler Koteskey mentions that despite their effectiveness, US Mk41 VLS must be reloaded in port. Koteskey notes that early attempts to install foldable cranes on US vessels failed, given the challenges of loading heavy canisters of munitions in rough seas. He adds that, depending on the availability of such facilities, returning to a port capable of reloading VLS can take weeks. He stresses that large-scale missile salvo attacks could rapidly deplete US VLS magazines in a high-end combat scenario. Japan is already building large Aegis System Equipped Vessels (ASEVs) to compensate for magazine limitations. However, concentrating so much capability on a few high-value ships makes them prime targets for North Korea and China attacks. Railguns may offer a critical solution to these missile defense bottlenecks. In a December 2011 Proceedings article, Maxwell Cooper notes that railguns can deliver many rounds at distances comparable to most missiles with the same lethality and accuracy, while at lower costs and greater quantities. Cooper explains that railguns fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds, with the round itself using its massive kinetic energy for destructive effects—no explosive filling is required. He also suggests that rounds could be equipped with GPS units for greater accuracy and that the absence of explosive propellant frees up some magazine space. However, while railgun rounds are smaller and cheaper than missiles, they still require substantial onboard power and projectile storage. Further, Cooper mentions that the lack of a capable multi-mission gun has forced US Navy commanders to use expensive, limited, high-end missiles for all types of targets, creating a gap in the ability to economically engage lower-end threats such as patrol boats, undefended coastal targets and basic ballistic missiles, which would otherwise be engaged with low-cost gun rounds. Railguns could also provide an economical means to counter saturation missile attacks. An April 2022 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report mentions that it takes 300 seconds to detect a missile launch signature, track the projectile, and calculate a vector for defensive projectiles. The report states that an 11-kilogram railgun projectile can disperse more than 500 three-gram tungsten impactors capable of destroying incoming missiles through sheer kinetic energy. While railguns offer promise, Japan still faces critical questions: Can Japan integrate and scale the technology fast enough to counter China's growing missile arsenal? And, can it avoid concentrating too much capability on a few vulnerable ships?
Asia Times
21-04-2025
- Business
- Asia Times
Hollow HALO: US admits defeat in hypersonic missile program
The US Navy has killed its next-generation hypersonic missile, slamming the brakes on a once-promising development program amid soaring costs, shaky performance and China's growing arsenal. This month, Naval News reported that the US Navy has terminated its Hypersonic Air-Launched Offensive (HALO) missile initiative, originally part of the Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare Increment 2 (OASuW Inc 2) program, citing insurmountable budgetary issues and underperformance. Rear Admiral Stephen Tedford, the US Navy's program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons, confirmed the cancellation occurred in the autumn of 2024 after a fiscal analysis deemed the system financially and operationally unviable. HALO was slated for 'early operational capability' (EOC) by FY29 and 'initial operational capability' by FY31, intending to counter high-value surface targets from standoff distances. Instead, Lockheed Martin's Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), a component of OASuW Increment 1, will undergo significant hardware and software upgrades to bolster precision and effectiveness. Tedford underscored the US Navy's commitment to long-range weapons, prioritizing existing systems to align with national defense objectives. Industry insiders, including Northrop Grumman executives, signaled HALO's challenges during the Sea Air Space 2025 expo, with feasibility and cost concerns dominating discussions. The decision to abandon the HALO program reflects broader fiscal and strategic recalibrations within America's munitions industrial base and highlights the challenges in developing exotic, high-cost systems amid tightening defense budgets. It may also highlight the US military's incapacity for rapid, high-speed, precision strikes against heavily defended naval targets. In a March 2025 Atlantic Council report, Michael White highlights that capability, stating that a subsonic missile such as Tomahawk or the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) would take one hour to reach a target 800 kilometers away, while a hypersonic cruise missile can hit the target in less than 10 minutes. White also mentions that a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) can make the trip between Guam and the Taiwan Strait in under 30 minutes. Asia Times has previously noted that the Harpoon anti-ship missile's short range of 128 kilometers for standard models, lack of speed or stealth to penetrate modern shipboard defenses and paucity of launch platforms other than carrier-based aircraft forces US Navy air carriers dangerously close to battle zones, putting these valuable assets at risk. This situation narrows the US Navy's tactical options for striking modern warships at long distances. However, Asia Times has pointed out that stealthy anti-ship missiles such as LRASM offer distinct advantages over hypersonic weapons by combining low radar cross-sections and minimal infrared signatures with advanced semi-autonomous guidance systems. These features ensure survivability and precision in heavily contested electromagnetic warfare (EW) environments, where reliance on external intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms might be compromised. The LRASM's stealth attributes make it harder to detect and intercept. In contrast, hypersonic weapons can create detectable plasma wakes and light emissions. The capability to share data and execute coordinated swarm attacks further enhances LRASM's effectiveness. Its stealth and autonomous targeting capabilities offer effective tactical solutions, offsetting some lost advantages from HALO's cancellation. Yet, at the operational level, HALO's cancellation risks creating a capability gap to defeat anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategies. A January 2023 report by the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) mentions that hypersonic weapons, launched beyond the reach of A2/AD systems with their atmospheric flight profile, enable them to evade midcourse missile defenses designed to intercept targets in space. According to the report, by flying lower and maneuvering unpredictably, hypersonic missiles complicate detection and interception by ship-based and short-range defenses, potentially neutralizing coastal air defenses, over-the-horizon (OTH) radars and strike systems early in a conflict. However, despite those advantages, a weak US hypersonic weapons industrial base may preclude the widespread adoption of such weapons. A report released this month by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) mentions that the US Department of Defense (DOD) has not yet established programs of record, indicating a lack of approved mission requirements or long-term acquisition plans for hypersonic weapons. It also points out that the US testing infrastructure remains limited, with no current US facility able to simulate full-scale, time-dependent flight environments above Mach 8. Additionally, it says flight test schedules are continually hampered by limited hypersonic flight corridors, insufficient test ranges and limited support assets, hindering efforts to transition hypersonic prototypes into deployable weapons systems. In contrast, the LRASM may have a more mature production base. In an April 2023 article for Air & Space Forces Magazine, Chris Gordon mentions that Lockheed Martin is producing more than 500 LRASMs and JASSMs a year, with the defense contractor working to increase capacity to 1,000 missiles annually. In the same article, Dom DeScisciolo mentions that the LRASM and JASSM share many components and are built on the same production lines. DeScisciolo notes the missiles are designated as either type depending on customer demand. Strategically, canceling HALO undermines the US Navy's efforts to maintain technological parity or superiority with competitors like China and Russia, which are aggressively advancing hypersonic missile programs. Russia has already used hypersonic weapons in combat against Ukraine, though their effectiveness and overall impact on the ongoing war of attrition between the two are debatable. Similarly, China fielded the DF-17 HGV missile system in 2019 and tested an HGV that reportedly circled the globe before cruising to its target in August 2021. In contrast, despite intensive testing, the US has yet to field any hypersonic weapon. In a March 2024 statement for the US House Armed Services Committee, Jeffrey McCormick mentions that China now has the world's leading hypersonic arsenal, underscoring China's advances in hypersonic weapon technology. McCormick says two decades of intense and focused investment, development, testing and deployment have dramatically advanced China's development of conventional and nuclear-armed hypersonic missile technologies. However, some argue hypersonic weapons are overhyped and no better than existing weapons. In a March 2024 article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, David Wright and Cameron Tracy argue that existing weapons, such as ballistic missiles, already fly at hypersonic speed and that drag from low-altitude atmospheric flight could slow hypersonic weapons down more than ballistic missiles on a depressed trajectory. Wright and Tracy mention that hypersonic weapons emit substantial heat signatures during launch and flight, which could be detected early by satellites and other ground-based sensors, enabling potential interception. They also say hypersonic weapons have limited maneuverability, as immense force is required to change direction at such speeds and scramjet engine technology for that purpose is still immature. In terms of accuracy, they point out that the same guidance systems in hypersonic weapons can be used in maneuvering missile warheads (MARVs) and that the latter fly high enough to avoid the in-flight heating problems associated with the former. In line with those views, Wright and Tracy say that while the US can not yet build functional hypersonic weapons, it stands to question whether those weapons make military and fiscal sense, regardless of whether its near-peer adversaries build them.
