Long-range artillery: the French are thinking about it, the German industrialists are anticipating it

Long-range artillery has become a critical operational issue for modern armies, its effectiveness in high-intensity conflicts having been widely demonstrated in Ukraine. And in this field, modern systems, such as the HIMARS from the American Lockheed-Martin or the Russian Tornado S and G, provide considerable added value over older systems, in particular due to their precision and a range unmatched by previous generation systems. In the West, only the United States had proven know-how in the field, the latter having developed the M270 MRLS which entered service in 1980 as a response to the Soviet Grad and Smerch.…

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Assembly of the Polish version of the Chunmoo multiple rocket launcher has begun

A few days ago, while visiting the Lockheed-Martin factory in Camden, Arkansas, which assembles the HIMARS system, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak indicated that Warsaw's potential order of 500 systems American rocket launchers remained under discussion, even though for several months and the announcement in October 2022 of the order by Warsaw of 300 South Korean K239 Chunmoo systems, it seemed that the order of Polish HIMARS should be reduced to 200 copies . This statement has, in fact, created some questioning about the future of the Chunmoo command, which could seem threatening. At first glance, there is nothing…

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The South Korean K2 Black Panther tank reportedly outperformed the Leopard 2A7 in the Norwegian competition

At the beginning of February, Oslo announced the selection of the Leopard 2A7 from the German Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, in order to replace its heavy tanks Leopard 2A4, at the end of a competition having opposed the German tank to the K2 Black Panther of the South Korean HRC. According to the Norwegian authorities, the two armored vehicles would have met the requirements of the specifications of the competition, both in terms of performance and budget, and the choice of the Leopard 2A7 was linked to political considerations and geographical proximity. One could then think that in these areas, the German tank and its South Korean counterpart had been on an equal footing. However, the interview made by the Polish site…

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Poland wants to join South Korea's KF-21 Boramae fighter jet program

In recent months, Warsaw has embarked on a strategic rapprochement with the South Korean defense industry. In July 2022, the Polish authorities announced the order for 180 K2 Thunder tanks produced in South Korea accompanied by 221 K9 self-propelled guns, as well as the local manufacture of more than 800 copies of this tank intended to replace the T-72 and 440 self-propelled guns, in particular to equip the 2 new mechanized divisions whose constitution had just been announced. In September, Warsaw confirmed the order for 48 South Korean FA-50 light fighters, then 300 K239 Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers, the South Korean equivalent of the American HIMARS. If this latest acquisition seems…

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Romania, Philippines, Argentina, Indonesia…: Naval Group's Scorpene submarine on short final in several countries

In aeronautics, the term “final” designates the trajectory of an aircraft once it is aligned with the runway and on a glide path leading to landing. The "short final", meanwhile, refers to the few seconds before touchdown, when the landing is, so to speak, inevitable. This term is in fact perfectly suited to the situation in which Naval Group's Scorpene conventional submarine finds itself today in several international competitions, in Romania, the Philippines, Indonesia and Argentina, with significant chances that one or more of these navies choose the French submarine in the coming weeks to…

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Is Poland trying to burn politeness at Rheinmetall around the production of HIMARS in Europe?

Only a few days ago, the CEO of German Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger, and the Vice President of Tactical Missiles at Lockheed-Martin, publicly signed a declaration of intent to propose a launch system -multiple rockets derived from the HIMARS to the Bundeswehr, to replace the MARS II currently in service. The first step was to respond to the partnership signed between Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and the Israeli ELBIT around the PULS system already chosen by Amsterdam rather than HIMARS in the context of the modernization of the Dutch armies. But for Rheinmetall, the objectives of the partnerships were probably not limited to the Bundeswehr alone,…

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Brazil would negotiate the acquisition of 40 additional Saab JAS-39 Gripen E/F

With only 42 F-5EM supersonic fighters in service, supported by 80 AMX and EMB-314 attack and counter-insurgency aircraft, Brazil is one of the countries with the weakest combat air force relative to its economic power. . In 2014, Brasilia ordered 32 JAS-39 Gripen E single-engine fighters as well as 8 two-seater Gripen F for operational transformation for $5,5 billion, to replace the Tigers acquired in 1974, with an important technological agreement allowing the local assembly of at least 15 devices. However, the changes requested by Brasilia quickly increased the note by $1 billion, while at the same time, Stockholm was committing to a…

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Turkish defense industry fully mobilized to support President Erdogan in upcoming elections

Rarely have the Turkish elections been so scrupulously followed by so many major world chancelleries, from Washington to Beijing, via Paris, Berlin or even Moscow. Indeed, to face the AKP, the party of justice and development of President Erdogan in power for 21 years, the 6 main opposition parties have made common cause to line up behind Kemal Kilicdaroglu, president of the Republican Party of the Social Democratic and Secular People, to lead the fight, while the popularity of the Turkish president has been severely eroded by the poor economic results of a country marked by galloping inflation of more than 55%...

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Canada set to launch replica of 2015 Australian competition to build 12 conventional submarines

Contrary to the vast majority of the European member countries of NATO, Canada, a founding member of the Alliance, has not, for the time being, presented a firm budgetary trajectory to achieve a defense effort of 2% of its GDP. However, and despite a starving defense effort of only 1,35% of GDP and a budget of $23 billion (us) in 2023, the country has undertaken, in recent years, several major programs to modernize its armies, including the acquisition of 88 F-35A combat aircraft to replace the 76 CF-18s still in service, but also 15 British F-26 heavy frigates to replace the 12 frigates of…

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South American countries are preparing for the renewal of their submarine fleet

While most of the international attention on naval forces is focused on the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Mediterranean-Atlantic theater, the South American fleets are far from being left behind, in particular in the field of submarines. Thus, no less than 24 diesel-electric submarines belonging to 7 South American navies are currently in service, for the vast majority of German Type 209s purchased new or second-hand in the 70s and 80s. Some of these navies , in this case the Chilean and Brazilian Navy, have already undertaken to modernize their fleet, Santiago being the first customer of the then new French submarine Scorpene in the mid-2000s for 2…

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