Current Events in Europe

Something to keep your eye on over the next year or three. The Scottish National Party, which won a majority in the devolved government of Scotland last year is starting to move towards a referendum on the country becoming independent. The issues with Westminster agreeing to let them do this legally are on firstly timing (Holyrood wants it in 2014, Westminster sooner) and over a second question allowing for a "devolution-max" (essentially having everything bar defence and foreign affairs). A full guide on the issue can be found here here. It's by no means a certainty that there would be a yes vote - but if Scotland were to break away, the defence ramifications wo…

From the most recent copy of Undersea Warfare: Oscar Shifts From Quality To Quantity Russia is planning to rebuild its Oscar II class nuclear submarines to carry a wide variety of missiles. Currently, each Oscar II carries 24 large anti-ship missiles. But by rebuilding the missile launchers (which are outside the pressure hull) to carry more, but smaller missiles, each Oscar II can carry up to 72 missiles. This makes it easier to overcome the anti-missiles of enemy surface ships. What is lost in range and warhead size will be made up with better target detection and countermeasures technology. Russia has eight Type 949A SSGNs (nuclear powered cruise missile submari…

Massive Blaze On Russian Nuclear Submarine

From BBC [excerpt]

From Aviation Week [excerpt]

From Defense Aerospace [excerpt]

From Flight Global [excerpt]

(extract) RIA Novosti For those of you wondering about the time difference, Russia's decided not to go back from Daylight Savings.

From Aviation Week [excerpt]

From Flight Global [excerpt]

Oh, that'll help relations with Moscow. Wish I had one in my backyard. From RIA Novosti [excerpt]

BBC News story IIRC, Greek S-300s protected the 2004 Games in Athens.

From RIA Novosti [excerpt]

From DEW Line [excerpt]

From Aviation Week [excerpt]

From Aviation Week [excerpt]

From Defense Aerospace [excerpt]

From DefenseNews [excerpt]

From RIA Novosti [excerpt]

Excerpt: Full story