Place to be in the next decade: should all the acquisition programmes announced by the Greek Minister of Defence, Mr Enangelos Meimarakis, at the opening ceremony of the 14th Athens defence exhibition in October 2006 materialise over the forthcoming ten years, there is every reason to believe that Defendory will be a busy place over that period of time.

Indeed, the Greek government has decided to plan its next defence acquisition programme over the next ten years instead of the usual five. In actual fact, as explained by an official, the Government has decided to go through two five-year plans to provide a smoother programme continuity--the prime aim being a vast modernisation of both the Greek armed forces and the defence industry.

Square and Tight

The Defence Minister made it very clear that, << in parallel to our unflinching determination for transparency in the management of public funds for defence procurements, the Ministry of National Defence and the New Democracy government have set as our main priority in the field of defence the upgrading and modernising of the Greek defence industry under the new law on procurements >>. He also strongly emphasised, << under the new law on procurements, the participation of the domestic defence industry in the Greek Armed Forces' armament programmes is now mandatory >>.

Without going into the meanders of the actual cascading allocations per sector for example; of the 11.5 billion [euro] allocated for the 2006 to 2010 period, 8.3 billion [euro] will be used for the settlement of previous commitments, and the remaining 2.96 will be used as << deposits for the following 2011 to 2016 term--itself a 15.4 billion [euro] commitment >>. The main areas of modernisation include:

* Development of fundamental earth stations for the Armed Forces Satellite Communications System 

* Procurement of 20 medium transport helicopters

* Construction of 6 frigates

* Acquisition of 40 fighter aircraft 

* Procurement of 84 wheeled armoured fighting vehicles

* Procurement of 5 ASW aircraft

* Upgrade of Meko frigates

* Participation in the Boc-Hellios joint venture

* Procurement of 291 tracked armoured vehicles

* Upgrade of Phalanx systems

* Acquisition of five mine-hunters

* New fighter aircraft self-protection suites

* Procurement of 18 PzH 2000 howitzers

* Procurement of 50 Amphibious armoured fighting vehicles

* Reconstruction of six S frigates to facilitate S 70B helicopter operation

* Acquisition of two missile fast attack craft 

* Acquisition of SAR helicopters and relative equipment

* Self protection suites for 20 AH-64A+ and 9 CH-47D helicopters.

It goes without saying that the press community at Defendory had strong doubts on Greece's capacity to financially absorb the procurement of six frigates over such a short period of time.

Communications

Close to the main entrance door Thales exhibited the latest version of its Talisman mobile satellite communications system originally developed for Britain (as the Cheetah). A highly compact unit. it weighs less than ten kilos and provides for X-band and Ku-band satellite links, can be set up in less than five minutes: but the company says that it is also looking into giving the system a K-band capability as well.

Drastically newer, though, is the vehicle-borne Satmove Quick Halt terminal. With the first units now being built, the system operates on X-band and offers full duplex communications at a rate of up to two megabytes per second. The reason why it is called Quick Halt is that the vehicle has to stop to enable its 1.80-metre dish aerial to establish a link with a satellite, an operation that is fully completed in less than ten minutes.

Not requiring the vehicle to stop, on the other hand, is the Satmove Xotm, which is under development--but at the cost of a lower transmission rate of one megabyte per second.

Still from Thales is the Modem XXI Network. Initially a joint development programme started six years ago with Alcatel, this anti-jam modem for satellite communication is now entirely a Thales programme. It is in initial production for France. According to the manufacturer, the system causes no loss of communication capacity and provides frequency-hopping space through one or several transponders within 500 MHz. A company official said that because the system's ability is so unique, there is a strong interest from the export market; to the extent that Thales has developed an export version known as the Modem 21-E which caters to C, X, Ka and Ku bands with a rate of two megabytes per second.

Turning to surface ship comms, Thales has developed the Sursat-S sitcom terminal. This is based on the X-band Surfsat-L which has been in production for French and Belgian frigates, the -S is a new demonstrator and is intended for use on smaller units, the clear intention being to make it transferable from one boat to another as required. It features a one-metre diameter radome and weighs less than 100 kilos.

From the United States, this time, comes the ITT Spearnet system. This is quite an interesting unit that operates over an IP radio. Described as a << shirt pocket radio >> the Spearnet is intended for small team units (or commandos, really), operating close to one another and provides multi-hop routing and automatic prioritization. Based on total simplicity of use, it has no display or dials and operates in the 2400 to 2480 MHz frequency with a maximum data transmission rate of six megabytes per second. The system has attracted interest from Spain, Turkey and some US forces units and will be in production in 2007. By the time these lines are printed, the United Kingdom might have started testing the Spearnet radio as part of the development of its Fist soldier programme.

Talking of Rheinmetall brings us closer to the latest achievements recorded by the Millennium Gun programme, which were proudly announced by Oerlikon's officials. The Millennium MG #01 naval weapon system, which is based on the Swiss Ahead round-firing revolver gun, has been based since August 2006 at the Navsea Naval Warfare Centre in Virginia; where it is to complete its US Navy qualification tests during 2007. This will be quite a milestone as it will clear the weapon system for use from US Navy ships, and Rheinmetall is aiming at the service's next LCSs. While the company was not officially allowed to confirm that eight units would be used by Venezuela, the fact is really an open secret since Navantia was clearly displaying posters at Defendory featuring the gun on the frigates destined to that nation. Another known customer is Denmark, with ten on order.

In the Air

Embraer had every reason to be at Defendory. During a one-on-one interview, the company's new Vice President Defence and Government Market Luz Carlos Aguiar explained that the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer has been talking to the Hellenic forces since June (2006) regarding the maritime patrol aircraft requirement underlined as part of the nation's new acquisition plans. For the time being, explained Aguiar, the company's aim is to provide them with the experience gathered with the P-99 (which has so far demonstrated an over 99% availability rate) and the Mexican MPA aircraft and, << to get a better understanding of their needs when they make their request for proposals, which is likely to be {towards the}end of 2007 or early 2008 >>. It must be remembered that the proposed maritime patrol aircraft is based on the ERJ-145 that is also the base platform of the four AEW&C recently delivered by Saab Ericsson (prime contractor) to the Hellenic Air Force (with Saab Ericsson spine-mounted aerials and onboard radar systems). The eventual fleet commonality is undoubtedly an argument for Embraer and a logistical advantage for the air force. Turning to the ISR variant of the 145, Aguiar said that there are relatively close sales opportunities around the world, for example in South Africa, << where they need to implement a system for the {surveillance during} 2010 football cup >>. The options are, according to Aguiar, that the South Africans could acquire the aircraft or lease it, but they might lease it first, like it and finally buy it. Embraer is also in touch with a number of South American countries, but also in Egypt, which has issued a request for information on maritime patrol aircraft. A similar request was also issued by the United Arab Emirates, but it appears that they would require a long-endurance platform.

In the unmanned aircraft scene, Korea Aerospace Industries was showcasing its new Night Intruder 2, which is a development of the Night Intruder 300, the airframe of which bares a strong resemblance with that of the Denel Seeker. The Night Intruder 2 is powered by a UEL rotary engine, carries a payload developed by Samsung (although Korean officials at the exhibition were unable to provide more details) and has an endurance of over nine hours at a cruise speed of between 120 and 150 km/hour for a mission radius of 120 kilometres. The aircraft, which has a wingspan of 6.4 metres, takes off at a maximum of 270 kilos The Korean Army has operated five systems since 2005 and is expected to place an order for additional systems.

Interestingly, the Korean Government has placed a contract with Korea Aerospace to develop a Male drone in co-operation with Korea's Agency for Defence Development. This is a longer-term project that would lead to a first flight around 2015.

At Sea

The Brahmos display at Defendory could hardly go unnoticed. The Indo-Russian missile programme is moving apace, and the sea-launched version is to equip three Rajput class destroyers (the Rajput itself was used for ten missile test firings at sea), the three 15A Kolkata-class destroyers that are currently being built by Russia for India and three Talwar class (Project 11356) corvettes being built for the Indian navy. While the Kolkatas will have a front-mounted pack of 16 Brahmos launchers, the other two are to receive eight launchers, with four conventional 'inclined' launchers on either side of the front gun mount and a cluster of four aft vertical launchers. During the last firing from the Rajput, the near-Mach 3 missile scored a direct hit against a target ship, which snapped into two halves before it sank within minutes. In all the Indian Navy plans to equip no less than twelve of its ships with the Brahmos.

The company is now working on the integration of the Brahmos on the Su-30 fighter aircraft. First firing trials are expected to take place towards the end of 2007.

Defendory 2008

The big question regarding the next Defendory exhibition is its venue. At Defendory 2004 we were told that the 2006 event would highly likely be moved to a different location--word even went round that the old Athens airport would have made an ideal place, as it has plenty of space for dynamic demonstrations. However, it appears that the old airport could not be homologated for exhibitions. Defendory organisation Vice President Tina Dimitropoulos said that she wouldn't be able to predict a future venue for the time being. One thing is certain; it will not be at the Piraeus exhibition centre, which has been threatening to collapse, as all the scaffolding supporting the concrete roof this year clearly testified. It was rumoured that the Government does not like the idea of converting the old airport and is favouring instead the new Thessaloniki International Exhibition Centre.

I See For You

These pictures taken by the author show the IC4U system being developed by Rheinmetall's Oerlikon Contraves subsidiary in Canada around the IdZ gear and provides the soldier with situational awareness (video, voice and data) through the company's tactical military Internet and battle management system. The main components are 1: helmet camera; 2: display; 3: pocket GPS receiver; 4: controller (this is a demonstrator suite, hence the 'untidy' wires and the ordinary headset). The screenshot shows a typical image displayed into the soldier's eyepiece. Not seen here is the computer, which is to be carried in a back pocket of the suit.

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