Current Events in Europe

From Mer et Marine (in French, but with a lot of photos): http://www.meretmarine.com/fr/content/le-drone-neuron-prend-son-envol

Aerotechnica upgrades 'Guideline' for an unidentified customer (Jane's) Talk about recycling.

Dutch and Belgian M class frigates (Karel Doorman) are receiving new squared mast with Seastar/Sea Watcher 100 four faces radar with some 40 Km range, for continuous detection of small naval sea crafts in asymetrical confrontations, also they will receive Gatekeeper new LLTV and IR sensors (in French): http://www.meretmarine.com/fr/content/un-nouveau-mat-pour-la-fregate-belge-leopold-ier

Severodvinsk Sub Fires First Cruise Missile (RIA Novosti)

Sweden acts smart to deliver 'complete air force' (Flight Global)

Irkut Delivers First Su-30SM Fighters to Russian Air Force (RIA Novosti)

From The Guardian [excerpt]

From DefenseNews [excerpt]

From Russian Military Reform blog English version available at the link. [excerpt]

BBC News (rmks: A Non-NATO independent Scotland would have resulted in the loss of Lossiemouth and the northern QRA deployment there, not to mention the radar stations - providing considerably less reaction time to any Russian probe or full scale-attack. If the independence referendum does pass, a new home would still need to be found for the Trident subs though and you'd need to divvy up the Typhoon/Tornado fleet)

From http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20121011/176553800.html [excerpt] So a Project 627A (NATO November) and the Project 645 will be salvaged, but (unsurprisingly) not the Project 685 (NATO Mike).

From Flight Global [excerpt]

A very old system, indeed. Photos of the tests in Mer et Marine: http://www.meretmarine.com/fr/content/navire-du-futur-le-vn-partisan-va-tester-de-nouveaux-systemes-dautoprotection

From http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065971819 [excerpt]

From http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/4-2012/item4/article2/ [excerpt]

From http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/picture-irkut-to-deliver-russias-first-su-30sm-early-376580/ [excerpt]

From http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20120917/176013705.html [excerpt]

From http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/09/08/breaking-the-ice/ [excerpt]

BBC News story; Video of the last departure and some reaction from the crew The end of an era.

The ASW Destroyer Vice-Admiral Kulakov has just departed Portsmouth UK after a 4 day port visit. Recently returned from the Horn of Africa and the Eastern Med, the Kulakov was open to the public for a short time on Sunday. battered and a bit rusty she was still an impressive sight . I'll post some pictures of the open day and her departure shortly.