Latest news with #artillery
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Panic as Israeli artillery shells strike tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis
Israeli artillery shells struck tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis on Sunday, killing three and wounding at least 30, according to Nasser Hospital. People fled the strike site in panic as a plume of smoke rose above scattered rubble near the blast. (AP Video by Mohammad Jahjouh and production by Wafaa Shurafa)
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Fort Indiantown Gap announces June training exercises
FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. (WHTM) — Fort Indiantown Gap announced Saturday that they will hold several training exercises in June and you might hear some loud noises as a result. The National Guard training center in Lebanon County will hold demolition training, grenade training, mortar training, and artillery training this month. The base said the training activities could 'result in increased noise levels. Demolition training will be June 1-5 between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. and June 7 between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m; grenade training is set for June 8 between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. and June 17 to 18 between 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.. Mortar training is scheduled June 23-27 from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. and artillery training is June 27-30 between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. Download the abc27 News+ app on your Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Apple TV devices For more information on the base, visit their website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Britain to be ‘war-ready' with £1.5bn for new bomb factories
Britain will move to a constant state of readiness for war by building six new bomb factories, the Defence Secretary will announce this week. John Healey will on Monday unveil plans to spend £1.5 billion on massively ramping up Britain's production of artillery shells and explosives. He will also commit to buying 7,000 long-range weapons after military bosses warned that the UK no longer has has an effective fighting force. The announcement will be made as ministers publish a Strategic Defence Review which will set out the future of the Army, Navy and Air Force. One of the key measures being taken will be the switch to an 'always on' approach to munitions supply so Britain is constantly ready for war. At least six weapons factories will be built across the country with the capacity to massively ramp up production should a conflict break out. Ministers have drawn lessons from the war in Ukraine which has seen both sides expend huge numbers of artillery shells, rockets and drones. Britain has significantly depleted its own stockpile of weapons by donating missiles, air defence systems, artillery shells and tanks to Kyiv. Last year ministers warned that the regular Army could be wiped out in as little as six months should the UK be dragged into a major conflict. Mr Healey said: 'The hard-fought lessons from Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine show a military is only as strong as the industry that stands behind them. 'We are strengthening the UK's industrial base to better deter our adversaries and make the UK secure at home and strong abroad. 'We will embrace the Strategic Defence Review; making defence an engine for economic growth and boosting skilled jobs in every nation and region as part of our Government's Plan for Change.' The £1.5 billion for new munitions factories will come from a significant uplift in defence spending announced by the Government. Sir Keir Starmer announced in February that funding for the military will be increased to 2.5pc of national wealth from April 2027. Mr Healey went further last week by confirming that should Labour win the next election it will jump further, to three per cent of GDP, by 2034. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has signed off on the surge in spending and said it would boost the economy by creating skilled jobs. 'A strong economy needs a strong national defence, and investing in weaponry and munitions and backing nearly 2,000 jobs across Britain in doing so, is proof the two go hand-in-hand,' the Chancellor said. 'We are delivering both security for working people in an uncertain world and good jobs, putting more money in people's pockets as part of our Plan for Change.' Ministers have said they will spend an extra £6.4 billion a year on the defence budget to achieve the 2.5 per cent target in 2027. Meanwhile the Office for Budget Responsibility has calculated that hitting three per cent next decade would cost an additional £17.3 billion. The defence review, written by former military chiefs, is also expected to warn that drones and artificial intelligence are changing the nature of warfare. It will say that Britain is facing 'a new era of threat' and question the size of the Army, which is now at its smallest since the Napoleonic era. The review will recommend that children are taught the values of the British military in school to help boost recruitment into the Armed Forces. It will also propose the creation of a new Second World War-style 'Home Guard' to protect key infrastructure like power plants and airports from attack.
BBC News
6 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Fibre optic drones: The terrifying new weapon changing the war in Ukraine
An acrid smell hangs over the town of Rodynske. A couple of minutes after we drive into the city we see where it's coming from.A 250kg glide bomb has ripped through the town's main administrative building, and taken down three residential blocks. We're visiting a day after the bomb struck, but parts of the wreckage are still smoking. From the edges of the town we hear the sound of artillery fire, and of gunshots – Ukrainian soldiers shooting down is about 15km (9 miles) north of the embattled city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it from the south since the autumn of last year, but Ukrainian forces have so far managed to stop Russian soldiers from marching Russia has changed tactics, moving instead to encircle the city, cutting off supply routes. In the past two weeks, as hectic diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine have failed, Russia has intensified its push, making its most significant advances since find proof of that in minutes of us arriving in town, we hear a Russian drone above us. Our team runs to the closest cover available – a tree. We press up against it so the drone won't see us. Then there's the sound of a loud explosion – it's a second drone making impact nearby. The drone above us is still hovering. For a few more minutes, we hear the terrifying whirring sound of what's become the deadliest weapon of this we can't hear it any more we take the chance to run to hard cover in an abandoned building 100ft the shelter, we hear the drone again. It's possible it returned after seeing our Rodynske is being swarmed by Russian drones is evidence that the attacks are coming from positions much closer than known Russian positions to the south of Pokrovsk. They were most likely coming from newly captured territory on a key road running from the east of Pokrovsk to half an hour of waiting in the shelter, when we can't hear the drone anymore, we move quickly to our car parked under tree cover, and speed out of Rodynske. By the side of the highway we see smoke billowing and something burning – it's most likely a downed drone. We drive to Bilytske, further away from the frontline. We see a row of houses destroyed by a missile strike overnight. One of them was Svitlana's home."It's getting worse and worse. Earlier, we could hear distant explosions, they were far away. But now our town is getting targeted – we're experiencing it ourselves," says the 61-year-old, as she picks up a few belongings from the wreckage of her home. Luckily Svitlana wasn't at home when the attack occurred."Go into the centre of the town, you'll see so much that is destroyed there. And the bakery and zoo have been destroyed too," she a safehouse just out of reach of drones, we meet soldiers of the artillery unit of the 5th Assault Brigade."You can feel the intensity of Russian assaults increasing. Rockets, mortars, drones, they're using everything they have to cut off supply routes going into the city," says unit has been waiting for three days to deploy to their positions, waiting for cloud cover or high-speed winds to give them protection from drones. In an ever-evolving conflict, soldiers have had to rapidly adapt to new threats posed by changing technology. And the latest threat comes from fibre optic drones. A spool of tens of kilometres of cable is fitted to the bottom of a drone and the physical fibre optic cord is attached to the controller held by the pilot."The video and control signal is transmitted to and from the drone through the cable, not through radio frequencies. This means it can't be jammed by electronic interceptors," says a soldier with the call sign Moderator, a drone engineer with the 68th Jaeger drones began to be used in this war in a big way, both militaries fitted their vehicles with electronic warfare systems, which could neutralise drones. That protection has evaporated with the arrival of fibre optic drones, and in the deployment of these devices, Russia currently has the edge. Ukraine is trying to ramp up production."Russia started using fibre optic drones much before us, while we were still testing them. These drones can be used in places where we have to go lower than usual drones. We can even enter houses and look for targets inside," says Venia, a drone pilot with the 68th Jaeger Brigade."We've started joking that maybe we should carry scissors to cut the cord," says Serhii, the artillery optic drones do have drawbacks – they are slower and the cable could get entangled in trees. But at the moment, their widespread use by Russia means that transporting soldiers to and from their positions can often be deadlier than the battlefield itself. "When you enter a position, you don't know whether you've been spotted or not. And if you have been spotted, then you may already be living the last hours of your life," says Oles, Chief Sergeant of the reconnaissance unit of the 5th Assault threat means that soldiers are spending longer and longer in their positions. Oles and his men are in the infantry, serving in the trenches right at the very front of Ukraine's defence. It's rare for journalists these days to speak to infantrymen, as it's become too risky to go to these trenches. We meet Oles and Maksym in a rural home converted into a makeshift base, where the soldiers come to rest when they're not on deployment."The longest I spent at the position was 31 days, but I do know guys who have spent 90 and even 120 days there. Back before the drones arrived, the rotations could have been between 3 or 7 days at the position," says Maksym."War is blood, death, wet mud and a chill that spreads from head to toe. And this is how you spend every day. I remember one instance when we didn't sleep for three days, alert every minute. The Russians kept coming at us wave after wave. Even a minor lapse would have meant we were dead."Oles says Russia's infantry has changed its tactics. "Earlier they attacked in groups. Now they only send one or two people at times. They also use motorcycles and in a few instances, quad bikes. Sometimes they slip through."What this means is that the front lines in some parts are no longer conventional lines with the Ukrainians on one side and the Russians on the other, but more like pieces on a chessboard during play, where positions can be also makes it harder to see advances made by either side. Despite Russia's recent gains, it will not be quick or easy for it to take the whole of the Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk has pushed back hard, but it needs a steady supply of weapons and ammunition to sustain the as the war enters a fourth summer, Ukraine's manpower issues against a much bigger Russian army are also evident. Most of the soldiers we meet joined the military after the war began. They've had a few months of training, but have had to learn a lot on the job in the middle of a raging worked for a drinks company before he joined the military. I asked how his family copes with his job."It's hard, it's really hard. My family really supports me. But I have a two-year-old son, and I don't get to see him much. I do video call him though, so everything is as fine as it could be under the circumstances," he trails off, eyes welling up with is a soldier fighting for his country, but he's also just a father missing his two-year-old reporting by Imogen Anderson, Sanjay Ganguly, Volodymyr Lozhko and Anastasiia Levchenko
National Post
6 days ago
- Business
- National Post
Canadian Army looks to spend more than $6 billion on new howitzers and rockets
The Canadian Army is looking at spending more than $6 billion for new self-propelled howitzers and ground-based long-range rockets, according to briefings provided to defence industry representatives. Article content Article content The Indirect Fires Modernization program, expected to cost more than $5 billion, will see the acquisition of self-propelled 155-mm artillery, ammunition as well as new mortar systems, according to a Canadian Army briefing for industry presented April 8 in Ottawa. Article content Article content Information about such equipment was requested from industry, which had until April 2 to provide details about their systems, according to a request-for-information document issued by the Canadian government. Article content Article content The program would include fire control software and investments in new infrastructure at military bases, including Garrison Petawawa, the request noted. Article content The second program is for a new land-based long-range missile system. The initial cost estimate for that is more than $1 billion but the price tag could be higher depending on how many rockets are ordered. Article content The Ottawa Citizen reported in March that Canada's military leadership was pushing for a sole source deal for the U.S.-built High Mobility Artillery Rocket System or HIMARS. Article content The plan that had been proposed by the Canadian Forces senior leadership would see the purchase of a number of HIMARS built by Lockheed Martin. Article content Another problem is that orders of U.S. HIMARS are significantly backlogged and it is unclear whether Canada could get any quick delivery of such systems. Article content Article content S outh Korean defence giant Hanwha is currently pitching Canada on both the high mobility artillery rocket systems and the self-propelled artillery program. Article content The company has hot production lines which are currently building the equipment for a number of nations. It has delivered its K9 self-propelled howitzer to 10 countries so far, including six NATO members.
