On October 30, the Indian Army conducted a night test of its Agni-1 ballistic missile from a test range off the Odisha coast. The test was part of the Strategic Forces Command’s periodic training, and according to Indian defense sources, the test achieved all mission objectives. The Agni-1 is a short-range, road/rail-mobile, solid propellant ballistic...
On October 27, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) commissioned its second Hobart-class air warfare destroyer, HMAS Brisbane (DDG 41). Brisbane is the second vessel in the RAN’s three-ship program to replace its fleet of Adelaide-class guided-missile frigates, the first being HMAS Hobart (DDG 39), commissioned in September 2017. Equipped with the Aegis Combat System, the vessel...
On October 29, TASS news agency reported that Russia’s Avangard hypersonic weapon system will be deployed by the end of 2019, according to a defense industry source. The Russian Defense Ministry has stated that the hypersonic missile would be placed on combat duty in the Red Banner Missile Division in the Orenburg Region in southwest...
On October 22, the U.S. Army confirmed its collaboration with the Navy, the Air Force, and the Missile Defense Agency to develop hypersonic weapons, amid developments in hypersonic missile testing in Russia and China. According to the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), the three armed services and the MDA are collaborating on a...
On October 26, the U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency (MDA) conducted a test of the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor off the west coast of Hawaii, successfully tracking and intercepting a medium range ballistic missile (MRBM) target. The SM-3 Block IIA was fired from the USS John Finn (DDG-113), which used the AN/SPY-1 radar and...
On October 19, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s spokesperson released a photograph depicting the Russian-built Kh-31 supersonic air-to-surface missile paired with its new MiG-29M/M2 multirole fighter, as first reported by Jane’s Igor Bozinovski. As Bozinovski notes, it is unclear whether these missiles are the antiship variant (Kh-31AD) or the anti-radiation variant (Kh-31PD) designed to target long-...
In Summer 2018, the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) conducted five flight tests of the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) interceptor, according to a Raytheon news release. In the first exercise, ROKN fired two SM-2 Block IIIA missiles, testing its semi-active radar seeker technology. Then, in a second exercise, ROKN test fired three SM-2 Block IIIB to...
On October 15, China’s Guangdong Hongda Mining Company test fired its new HD-1 supersonic cruise missile nicknamed “aircraft carrier killer” in a discreet location in Northern China. According to a statement released by the company, the test verified the missile’s launch, power, and flight control systems, achieving the estimated values for its supersonic cruising flight...
On October 12, South Korea‘s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced at a parliamentary audit their plan to purchase SM-3 interceptors to counter North Korea’s ballistic missiles. A decision “for something at the SM-3 level” was made during a JCS meeting in September 2017, according to head of the JCS force-buildup planning bureau Major General...
Satellite imagery taken on September 7 of Guiping-Mengshu People’s Liberation Army Navy Air Force (PLANAF) air base reportedly shows that China has acquired at least four Xian H-6J bombers. Currently, the PLA South Sea Fleet operates the H-6G bomber. The new H-6J variant extends the range of the bomber, now able to cover the majority...
