The treaty was concluded on February 6, 1922. Ratifications of that treaty were exchanged in Washington on August 17, 1923, and it was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on April 16, 1924.
Later naval arms limitation conferences sought additional limitations of warship building. The terms of the Washington treaty were modified by the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936. By the mid-1930s, Japan and Italy renounced the treaties, while Germany renounced the Treaty of Versailles which had limited its navy. Naval arms limitation became increasingly difficult for the other signatories.
STOBAR ("Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery" or "Short Take-Off, Barrier Arrested Recovery") is a system used for the launch and recovery of aircraft from the deck of an aircraft carrier, combining elements of "short take-off and vertical landing" (STOVL) with "catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery" (CATOBAR).
20-8-28 UAE implicated in lethal drone strike in Libya: The BBC has uncovered new evidence that a drone operated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) killed 26 unarmed cadets at a military academy in Libya's capital Tripoli in January 2020. Evidence indicates the cadets were hit by a Chinese Blue Arrow 7 missile, fired by a drone called the Wing Loong II. The investigation ... also found evidence that, at the time of the strike, Wing Loong II drones were only operating from one Libyan air base - al-Khadim - and that the UAE supplied and operated the drones that were stationed there.
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The Chengdu Pterodactyl I, also known as Wing Loong, is a Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), developed by the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group in the People's Republic of China. Intended for use as a surveillance and aerial reconnaissance platform, the Pterodactyl I is capable of being fitted with air-to-surface weapons for use in an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) role. Based on official marketing material released by CADI, the Pterodactyl can carry the BA-7 air-to-ground missile, YZ-212 laser-guided bomb, YZ-102A anti-personnel bomb and 50-kilogram LS-6 miniature guided bomb.
Wing Loong II: An upgraded variant of the Wing Loong, with provisions for up to twelve air-to-surface missiles. Officially entered service with the PLAAF in November 2018.
The MQ-9 is a larger, heavier, and more capable aircraft than the earlier General Atomics MQ-1 Predator; it can be controlled by the same ground systems used to control MQ-1s. The Reaper has a 950-shaft-horsepower (712 kW) turboprop engine (compared to the Predator's 115 hp (86 kW) piston engine). The greater power allows the Reaper to carry 15 times more ordnance payload and cruise at about three times the speed of the MQ-1. The aircraft is monitored and controlled by aircrew in the Ground Control Station (GCS), including weapons employment.
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) (or uncrewed aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone) is an aircraft without a human pilot on board and a type of unmanned vehicle. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS); which include a UAV, a ground-based controller, and a system of communications between the two. The flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy: either under remote control by a human operator or autonomously by onboard computers.
Compared to crewed aircraft, UAVs were originally used for missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans. While they originated mostly in military applications, their use is rapidly expanding to commercial, scientific, recreational, agricultural, and other applications, such as policing and surveillance, product deliveries, aerial photography, smuggling, and drone racing. Civilian UAVs now vastly outnumber military UAVs, with estimates of over a million sold by 2015.
This week the European Union imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organisation accused of committing human rights abuses in the Central African Republic and elsewhere.
Wagner gained prominence in 2014, when it was fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since then, the group has become active in the Middle East, as well as in central and southern Africa. Wagner Group is believed to be funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a rich businessman with links to President Vladimir Putin. [In keeping with Russia's policy of lying] Prigozhin has always denied any connection with Wagner. The Russian government also denies any state involvement with the group while also maintaining it does not legally exist because private military contractors are illegal in Russia.
The Wagner Group which has been involved in various actions as a private military contractor. On 7 February 2018, Wagner attacked US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria in an attempt to take an oil field. Wagner and their allies suffered dozens of casualties when the US responded with airpower.
The Washington Post reported Prigozhin was in close contact with Russian and Syrian military officials before the February 7 action. The connections between Prigozhin and Wagner have been the subject of press coverage in Russia and the United States. Wagner is led by Dmitry Utkin, who was once head of security for Prigozhin. A person by the name of Dmitry Utkin was also listed as Director General of Prigozhin's Concord Management. Since 2011, Prigozhin's mother Violetta Prigozhina has been the owner of Concord. [Lying] Concord and Prigozhin denied any connection to Wagner, however in November 2016 the company confirmed to Russian media that the same Dmitry Utkin leading the Wagner Group was now in charge of Prigozhin's food businesses. Wagner has also been reported to be fighting in eastern Ukraine with pro-Russia forces.
On 30 July 2018, three Russian journalists working for a news organization often critical of the Russian government were murdered in the Central African Republic, where they had been attempting to investigate the activities of the Wagner Group in that country. The Russian government had begun a collaboration with the president of the Central African Republic in October 2017. In its response to the killings, Russia's foreign ministry stressed that the dead journalists had been traveling without official accreditation.
Wagner is believed to have started working in the CAR in 2017, after the UN Security Council approved a Russian training mission there and lifted the arms embargo imposed in 2013. Wagner operatives, as well as government forces, have raped and robbed unarmed civilians in the country's rural areas, the UN and French say. In a report in August about human rights abuses in the CAR, the UN documented more than 500 incidents in the year from July 2020. Among those were extrajudicial killings, torture and sexual violence.
In October 2017, President Touadéra travelled to Russia to sign a number of security agreements with the Russian government. These included a request for military support, in exchange for access to the CAR's significant deposits of diamonds, gold and uranium.
The UN had only agreed to the deployment of 175 Russian trainers for the local military. The EU has said that it will no longer train CAR government soldiers because of their links to Wagner. In Africa, Wagner Group fighters are also involved in Libya, Sudan and Mozambique and look likely to play a role in Mali.
The top secret US mission to steal the latest Mi-24 Hind gunship in 1988, known as Operation Mount Hope III.
During the early 1960s, it became apparent to Soviet designer Mikhail Mil that the trend towards ever-increasing battlefield mobility would result in the creation of flying infantry fighting vehicles, which could be used to perform both fire support and infantry transport missions. The first expression of this concept was a mock-up unveiled in 1966 in the experimental shop of the Ministry of Aircraft's factory number 329, where Mil was head designer. The mock-up designated V-24 was based on another project, the V-22 utility helicopter, which never flew. The V-24 had a central infantry compartment that could hold eight troops sitting back to back, and a set of small wings positioned to the top rear of the passenger cabin, capable of holding up to six missiles or rockets and a twin-barreled GSh-23L cannon fixed to the landing skid.
In NATO circles, the export versions, Mi-25 and Mi-35, are denoted with a letter suffix as "Hind D" and "Hind E". Soviet pilots called the Mi-24 the "flying tank" (летающий танк; letayushchiy tank), a term used historically with the famous World War II Soviet Il-2 Shturmovik armored ground attack aircraft. More common unofficial nicknames were "Galina" (or "Galya"), "Crocodile" (Крокодил; Krokodil), due to the helicopter's camouflage scheme and "Drinking Glass" (Стакан; Stakan), because of the flat glass plates that surround earlier Mi-24 variants' cockpits.
Companies are now developing and deploying sophisticated new defences, from frying the electronic circuits with powerful beams of microwave radiation (phasers), to precise jamming systems.
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By programming a UAV to fly around numerous points before arriving at its target it can avoid the obvious directions from which an attack is expected. This may explain why existing radars failed to spot the drone formation which attacked Abqaiq. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49984415
The SFSG also act as the hunter force during the SERE phase of the UKSF Selection. The Defence Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract (SERE) Training Organisation, otherwise known as DSTO, is a military training organisation based at RAF St. Mawgan, Cornwall In the United Kingdom. DSTO is a tri-service organisation and trains personnel of the British armed forces in survival techniques, evading capture and resistance from interrogation, prior to overseas deployment. In addition, the SFSG have a rotating company group trained in Counter Terrorism (CT) to support the on-call SAS or SBS squadrons on CT rotation.
Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, trained, and equipped forces, manned with selected personnel, using unconventional tactics, techniques, and modes of employment".
Selection takes place in the Brecon Beacons and Elan Valley in Wales, and in the jungle of Belize, taking around six months to complete. Selection is held twice a year regardless of conditions.
In Russian-speaking countries, special forces of any country are typically called spetsnaz, an acronym for "special purpose". In the United States, the term special forces often refers specifically to the U.S. Army's Special Forces, while the term special operations forces (SOF) is used more broadly for these types of units.
Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access. The constellation will consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), working in combination with ground transceivers. SpaceX plans to sell some of the satellites for military, scientific, or exploratory purposes. The SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington houses the Starlink research, development, manufacturing, and orbit control. The cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be about US$10 billion.
Product development began in 2015. Two prototype test-flight satellites were launched in February 2018. Additional test satellites and 60 operational satellites were deployed in May 2019. As of September 2020, SpaceX was launching up to 60 satellites at a time, aiming to deploy 1,440 of the 260 kg (570 lb) spacecraft to provide near-global service by late 2021 or 2022. SpaceX planned a private beta service in the Northern United States and Canada by August 2020 and a public beta in November 2020, service beginning at high latitudes between 44° and 52° North.
Concerns were raised about the long-term danger of space debris from placing thousands of satellites above 600 km (370 mi), and the negative impact on optical and radio astronomy on Earth. In response, SpaceX lowered the orbits to 550 km (340 mi) and below, and launched prototype satellites with anti-reflective coating and an experimental sunshade.
On 15 October 2019, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) submitted filings to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on SpaceX's behalf to arrange spectrum for 30,000 additional Starlink satellites to supplement the 12,000 Starlink satellites already approved by the FCC.
