Japan To Beef Up Maritime Defense

Japan will massively reinforce its maritime defense because it feels threatened by China's expanding military power amid a territorial dispute over the Senkaku (or Diaoyu) Islands.

Tokyo is expected to revise its defense white paper for the first time in six years, including deploying troops on Yonaguni Island, close to Taiwan, and lifting a ban on weapons exports, the South China Morning Port reported on Sunday.
The white paper, which is expected to be released next month, will announce a plan to reinforce troops on islands that stretch southwest between the Japanese mainland and Taiwan. It will also include deployment of commando troops on Yonaguni Island, Japan's westernmost island southwest of the Senkaku Islands, and the construction of military facilities on four or five nearby islands, the Hong Kong daily said.

The white paper will pave the way for Japanese munitions manufacturers to participate in joint arms development programs with the U.S., Australian, Indian and Korean firms, and loosen restrictions on weapons exports.

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Japanese Stealth Fighter Mitsubishi ATD-X

Japan will develop its own stealth fighter jets to compete against the rapidly advancing Chinese air force and other threats to its air defenses, officials said.
Japan’s air force has been searching for replacements for its aging fleet of F-4s and F-15s. But its hopes to purchase F-22s from Washington have been hindered by a U.S. Congress export ban and its reluctance to share sensitive military technology with foreign governments.

 

 

The key part of the six-year project, to be launched officially next April, involves developing an XF5-1 engine that would allow a fighter jet to be both highly maneuverable and cruise at supersonic speeds, according to the Japanese defense ministry.

“We need fighters that are fitted with highly advanced technology, considering what’s been developed in other countries,” the ministry said in a recent statement. “It is a crucial project in developing fighters that will play a key role in our future fleet and build our space defense.”
Defense officials hope to have a test flight of the prototype, unofficially nicknamed “Shinshin,” or Spirit, by the end of March 2014. The entire project is expected to cost $419.8 million.

The ministry has requested a $141.4 million budget for the initial year, pending government approval, a spokesman said Thursday, on condition he not be named.

Maneuverability and supersonic speeds mean that a jet can go faster, longer, and a radar-evading stealth design makes it harder to detect.
Having homegrown stealth capabilities, rather than relying on foreign imports for key military technology, would also serve as a deterrent and boost national security “in the face of stealth development in China and Russia,” the spokesman said.
Russia is aiming to create a fifth-generation attack fighter by around 2015 as part of its modernization and restructuring of its military.
China has already unveiled its J-10 fighter, which is believed to be one of the most advanced used by any air force in the world today. Beijing is believed to be developing upgraded models, the J-12 and J-14, with stealth capabilities.

Stealth development is part of Japan’s efforts in recent years to build up its air defenses.

North Korea Updates A Cold War Classic:RSM-25

Japanese intelligence believes that North Korea is close to putting into service their new RSM-25 (or Musudan) ballistic missile. It was only last year that a military parade in North Korea featured the first public appearance of the long rumored RSM-25 missile. This is a variant of the Russian SS-N-6 submarine launched missile. The North Korean version is believed to weigh 20 tons and have a range of over 3,000 kilometers. The Japanese believe the range of the North Korean missile may be as much as 4,000 kilometers. It is believed that the North Korean version, using solid fuel rockets, was tested successfully two years ago.

The SS-N-6 is a 1960s vintage ballistic missile, and is known in Russia as the R-27. SS-N-6 is a NATO code name for the R-27. This was Russia's first true submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and sixteen of them were carried in Yankee class SSBNs (missile carrying nuclear submarines.) The 12 ton R-27 had a range of 2,800 kilometers and used storable liquid fuel. This means it can be ready for launch in less than half an hour.
After the R-27 was replaced by more modern missiles in the 1970s, the missile continued to be used for scientific research until 1990. By that time, 492 R-27s had been launched, 87 percent of them successfully.
It would be very embarrassing for the Russians if someone had illegally exported SS-N-6/R-27 missiles to North Korea. It is more likely, and was been reported a few years ago, that the Russian organization that designed the R-27   illegally sold the plans to North Korea. This was supposed to have happened sometime in the 1990s, and the main reason for the deal was so that North Korea could obtain the R-27 missile guidance technology. The Russians kept improving the guidance system of the R-27 through the 1980s, while the North Koreans were desperate for missile guidance technology. But it appears that the North Koreans built at least one R-27, and may have incorporated R-27 technology in some of their other long range ballistic missiles. The North Koreans were apparently pleased with the R-27 design, and spent the time and effort to change it so that Musudan used more reliable solid fuel rocket motors, than the original liquid fuel ones.

Strategy Page.

Russian Military Build-up in the Pacific May Not be Aimed at Japan

Russia seems to have found a place to deploy its two most modern French-built assault helicopter-carrying ships – in the Far East to help defend the Kurile Islands. The first Russian Mistral will be built by the end of 2013, the second by 2015 and together will reportedly cost some 1.4 billion Euros ($1.9 billion) (RIA Novosti, February 9). Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, earlier this month inspected the Russian garrison (the 18th machinegun/artillery division) entrenched in Cold War era bunkers on the southern Kurile Island of Kunashir (Japanese name –Kunashiri) and Iturup (Japanese name –Etorofu), under Russian rule since 1945 and claimed by Japan together with the Habomai islets and Shikotan as the so-called Northern Territories. Serdyukov promised to reinforce and rearm the Russian garrison (ITAR-TASS, February 4). After that a flurry of controversial statements followed, apparently, indicating disagreement about concrete details of the planned military build-up.

One “high-ranking source in the General Staff” told the semi-official news agency, Interfax, that the 18th division will be transformed into a brigade, though the number of service personnel will remain approximately 3,500 and that there was no need to send to the Kuriles long-range S-300 or S-400 antiaircraft missiles. According to Army-General (retired) Yuri Yakubov, the former commander of the Far East Military District, the garrison of the South Kurile Islands already has relatively modern T-80 tanks, but it needs new light armored vehicles and additional helicopters (Interfax, February 15).

Another “high-ranking source in the General Staff” told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency: “There is no need to reshape the 18th division. New brigades are intended for maneuverable warfare, which on the South Kuriles is absolutely impossible. The 18th division is perfectly formed as an entrenched fortress garrison, but it will be reinforced by an air-space defense missile brigade, possibly with S-400 missiles” (RIA, Novosti, February 15).

Of the 45 permanent readiness antiaircraft missile regiments in the Air Force Antiaircraft Missile Troops presently only one with S-400’s has been deployed to defend Moscow. This week a second S-400 regiment officially received its missiles and other equipment. The new regiment will have two divisions, each with eight launchers, and each launcher has four missile tubes. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the second S-400 regiment, the chief of the Air Force Antiaircraft Missile Troops, Major-General Sergei Popov, told journalists: “it does not make sense to send S-400’s to the South Kuriles” adding that shorter range Buk missiles could do the job. According to Popov, during the Cold War an antiaircraft radar regiment was deployed on the South Kuriles, a fighter regiment on the nearby Sakhalin Island and “its planes could intercept any target in minutes.” Of course, Popov added, if orders are given, the S-400’s will be sent (RIA Novosti, February 16).

The threat of Japanese soldiers storming the Kurile beaches to retake the Northern Territories by force seems remote, but revamping the Russian garrison seems sure to go ahead. Serdyukov has announced the airstrip at the Buryvestnik airbase on Iturup will be extended to receive heavy Il-76 transport planes to facilitate troop reinforcements in a time of conflict (Interfax, February 9).  During a meeting with Serdyukov and the minister for regional development, Viktor Basargin, Medvedev pledged to fully support efforts to boost military capabilities and civilian infrastructure in the Kuriles (www.kremlin.ru, February 9).

In 2006, a special federal program was approved to spend 18 billion Rubles ($612 million) from 2007 to 2015 to develop civilian infrastructure in the Kuriles. According to Basargin, 9 billion rubles ($306 million) have been spent and the Kurile federal program “is one of the few that were not cut during the financial crisis.” Basargin requested an additional 8 billion rubles ($273 million) to add to the Kurile program, including 1.5 billion ($51 million) in 2011 and Medvedev agreed. Officially, the Russian population of the South Kuriles is 16,400 which apparently include several thousand military personnel and families (some 3,500 in the 18th division plus the air force, the navy and border guards). The Kurile federal program has been tentatively increased to 26 billion rubles ($885 million) and may exceed $1 billion – according to Basargin, the governor of Sakhalin to which the Kurils administratively belong, has asked for an extra 13 billion rubles ($443 million) (www.kremlin.ru, February 9). This does not include defense spending on rearming and developing military infrastructure in the South Kuriles, the building of a facility to harbor the Mistral assault ships on the Russian mainland and other costs. Taking into account the sparse population of the South Kuriles, the overall investment is huge and clearly reflects a massive strategic commitment overruling other urgent infrastructural problems in Russia at a time when the federal budget is in deficit.

Russia’s First Deputy Defense Minister, Army-General Nikolai Makarov, told journalists: “We need such ships [Mistrals] to defend the Kurile chain that is now defenseless. The army was there before, but now there is no one and we need mobile capabilities to bring in forces rapidly to close gaps in time of need” (Interfax, February 9). But the South Kuriles are already defended and reinforced. Makarov seems to mean the Kurile Islands north of Iturup that Japan does not claim, which housed military bases during the Cold War, and are now abandoned. With the exception of the northern island of Paramushir with reportedly 2,400 inhabitants; the Kurile Islands from Iturup to Kamchatka are uninhabited. It seems the deployment of the Mistrals in the Pacific Fleet is not against Japan, but that the US in preparation for conflict could “leap-frog” the fortified South Kuriles into the undefended and uninhabited central Kuriles to invade the Sea of Okhotsk. To defend the Sea of Okhotsk as a safe haven for nuclear strategic submarines, the Russian military is deploying capabilities to reinforce the entire island chain.

The South Kurile visits by Medvedev and other top officials that have provoked the present diplomatic spat with Tokyo may have been mainly high-level inspections to see that vast federal infrastructural expenditures have not been all stolen, as often happens in Russia. Japan is not a first-class priority in Russian politics or strategic planning. The strategic build up in the Kuriles and of the Pacific Fleet capabilities may not be aimed at Japan or China per se, but the US – Russia’s true present number one strategic concern.

Japan Stealth Jet Prototype Set To Fly In 2014

Japan is looking to join the United States, China and Russia with a stealth fighter that senior Japanese air force officials say can be ready for a prototype test flight in just three years, significantly upping the ante in the intensifying battle for air superiority in the Pacific.

The prototype will likely be able to fly in 2014, Lt. Gen. Hideyuki Yoshioka, director of air systems development at Japan's Ministry of Defense, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He said Japan has put 39 billion yen (473 million) into the project since 2009, after it became clear the United States was not likely to sell it the F-22 "Raptor" America's most advanced fighter jet because of a congressional export ban.

"We are two years into the project, and we are on schedule," Yoshioka said on Monday.

Yoshioka stressed that a successful test flight of the prototype, dubbed "Shinshin," or "Spirit," does not mean Japan will immediately start producing stealth aircraft. The prototype is designed to test advanced technologies, and if it is successful the government will decide in 2016 how to proceed.

Japan is feeling the pressure of a regional dogfight over fighter superiority.

"If the countries surrounding Japan have stealth capabilities, Japan will need to develop those capabilities itself to ensure our own defense," said Col. Yoshikazu Takizawa of the Defense Ministry's Technical Research and Development Institute.

Japan relies to a large degree for its defense on its alliance with the United States, which has a significant number of fighters and other aircraft, along with some 50,000 troops, stationed around the Japanese archipelago.

Japan Launches F-X Fighter Jet Competition

Japan has formally launched its F-X fighter competition by sending a request for proposals to three potential bidders.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin have confirmed a US government representative has received Japan's RFP on behalf of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and F-35 Lightning II, respectively.

A UK representative is also understood to have picked up the RFP for a possible bid by the Eurofighter Typhoon. 

Each bidder should receive a copy of the solicitation soon.

Japan has released the RFP just a few weeks after the country was hit by an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis, leaving an estimated 26,000 people dead and public safety still at risk.

Damage caused by the disasters may have included an entire squadron of 18 Mitsubishi F-2B trainers, at least some of which were engulfed by seawater when the tsunami struck Matsushima air base.

Meanwhile, Japan has already started decommissioning its fleet of ageing McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs, which it plans to replace with the F-X fighter.

Tokyo had originally expressed interest in importing the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor, but the US Congress decided not to waive or rescind the export ban on the fifth-generation air superiority fighter.

Instead, Japan has launched the F-X competition while funding internal development of the ATD-X stealth demonstrator.

First Flight OF Japanese Stealth Fighter ATD-X in 2014

Tokyo has reaffirmed its plan for a 2014 first flight of its experimental Mitsubishi ATD-X Shinshin stealth demonstrator, while it also considers three fighters for its F-X requirement.

"The first flight of the ATD-X is scheduled in Japan fiscal year 2014," said Japan's defence ministry.

"The ATD-X is a trial product of a high-manoeuvrability stealth aircraft adopting various state-of-the-art technologies that may be applied to future fighters, and confirm and verify the practicality and operational effectiveness of systems under various flight conditions," said the ministry.

"It is also intended for the study of air defence against stealth fighters that might be deployed in the neighbouring region in the future."

 

Japan unveiled the first full-sized mock-up of the ATD-X at Japan Aerospace 2008. Many observers, noting the immense costs and risks in developing an indigenous fighter, have speculated that the project was a bargaining chip to help Tokyo gain access to the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, which Washington steadfastly refused to sell to its Pacific ally.

Meanwhile, the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Eurofighter Typhoon and Lockheed F-35A Lightning II are vying for the F-X requirement to replace Japan's McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms. Tokyo issued a long-awaited request for proposals for the deal in April.

According to Tokyo's mid-term defence programme for the years 2011-15, the Japan Air Self-Defence Force has initial plans to procure 12 aircraft, with the final number yet to be determined. At a media briefing at the Paris air show, however, Boeing said the F-X requirement is for 42 aircraft.

Boeing added that it elected to offer the Super Hornet as opposed to a variant of the F-15 because Japan seeks a diversity of fighter types. The country operates a large force of F-15Js, but was concerned about readiness in the event of a problem with a specific type of aircraft.

Under F-X, substantial parts of the aircraft selected will be produced in Japan. Both Boeing and Lockheed have a long history of industrial co-operation with Japan on fighter programmes, while Eurofighter is a newcomer.

Tokyo expects proposals to be submitted by the end of September. The defence ministry said it will request that funds for the F-X purchase be appropriated for FY2012, with the aim of inducting the aircraft in 2016