Contemporary Wars

Thanks for the heads up, Iama. Interesting info.

And now that non EU coutries are allowed, the path is clear for an additional niche capability : the deployment of a fully integrated Moldavian anarchist brigade

No, we work alone, as instigators...

Besides, we don't need no stinkin' EU leadership! With our sheep, wine, women and poetry, we are covered from all directions!

Did I tell you that the European Union Project will be an utter failure?

Yes. You also talked about a space empire, about yellows Martians and then you drifted quickly into sleep.

I finished your wine

India - Pakistan

After India increasing power, USA take decision to arm India's neighbor and enemy, Pakistan, with some balance s...t - not for money, ofcourse...

"ISLAMABAD --- Expressing "appreciation" for the decision by US to sell 1.2 billion dollars worth of arms, Pakistan today said the new weapon systems would help to maintain "conventional arms balance" in the region. Pakistan's appreciation of US decision was conveyed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to US Central Command Chief Gen. John P. Abizaid, when the US military official called on him here today.

"Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz while appreciating Pak-US Armed Forces cooperation, said it is important for peace in the region that Pakistan maintains conventional arms capability," a Pakistan government statement here stated.

The US Congress decision to provide 1.2 billion dollars arm sale to Pakistan would help a great deal in maintaining Pakistan's conventional arms capability, the statement quoted Aziz as saying.

"Pakistan needs to upgrade its defence capability for three services and appreciate assistance in this regard", he said adding that he appreciated Pak-US defence cooperation which would help in maintaining conventional arms defence capability of Pakistan.

He said Pakistan strives for peace and stability in the region and was working for close and friendly relations with all its neighbours.

Gen. Abizaid is visiting Pakistan along with a high powered military delegation in the backdrop of US decision to provide it with USD 1.2 bn defence package, including delivery of six Phalanx anti-ship missiles and six Orion surveillance aircraft and anti-tank missiles. "

Press Trust of India, 01 December 2004

Iama

I thought that India was the democracy and Pakistan the dictatorship

Confusing times. You no longer know who to invade who to sell arms to. It's all so complicated

Hmmmm.... You have right. But, when you need an adversary, you start propaganda against him. Like Irak. Now, lets look more far, in North Koreea:

"There is growing concern that North Korea has reprocessed enough plutonium for as many as six nuclear bombs. This apprehension was emphasized in an American newspaper interview with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In an interview with The New York Times newspaper, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei said he believes nuclear material his agency once monitored in North Korea has been converted for use in four to six nuclear bombs.

Pyongyang kicked out IAEA inspectors nearly two-years ago, and shortly afterwards, removed 8000 spent nuclear fuel rods from a holding pond where they were being stored.

This is the main reason IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Mr. ElBaradei's comments were not based on new evidence.

"Unfortunately, we have no possibility to accurately check on what is going on in North Korea," she said. "In fact, no one does. All we can go by is assumptions, assumptions that are based, though, on a very good knowledge of what North Korea had, plutonium, what facilities it has, that is a re-processing facility, and what capabilities it has, and that are scientists with the know-how. So, one has to assume if there is a will there, there is an intention, that they would be perfectly capable of turning this plutonium into weapons-grade plutonium, and perhaps a nuclear weapon."

Ms. Fleming added that Mr. ElBaradei has repeatedly said in the past that he believes North Korea has re-processed its plutonium into weapons-grade nuclear material. But she added that his comments this time are meant to underscore his belief that the issue is becoming increasingly urgent.

"The world, he believes, should be aware that there is this country there that is not under IAEA oversight, where time is really ticking and where there is this serious concern that they are developing nuclear weapons, and that they will be, if not already are, a nuclear weapons state," she added.

Harvard University Professor Joseph Nye said if North Korea indeed possesses more weapons-grade plutonium than originally thought, the risk that the unpredictable Asian country could transfer the material to terrorists becomes greater.

"When you only have one or two, you are not likely to trade one away or sell it to a terrorist. As the number starts to rise, that becomes more of a danger," he said.

A senior administration official, who spoke on background, said there has been no change in U.S. assessments of the North Korean threat. The Central Intelligence Agency has estimated that Pyongyang may have enough material for only two to three nuclear weapons.

The U.S. official added, though, that Washington remains concerned about the North Korea nuclear crisis. He said the U.S. government wants Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program, and is working to move forward as quickly as possible with six-nation talks aimed at achieving a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. "

The most impartial source: Voice of America news, December 6 2004

Iama

Geez, they're already scrapping the bottom of the barrel or what ?

http://www.marionstar.com/news/stories/200...ws/1731211.html

US had one of the best military training and simulation facilities. Look at a news:

"United Defense Receives $38.2 million Contract Modification for Opposing Forces Surrogate Vehicle Effort

SANTA CLARA, Calif. --- United Defense Industries, Inc. has been awarded a $38.2 million contract modification to a previously awarded contract for the production Opposing-Forces Surrogate Training Systems-Main Battle Tank (OSTS-MBT) vehicles for the U.S. Army.

This modification exercises Option 3 for the production of 43 additional MBT vehicles and for related Systems Technical Support (STS) to production.

The STS work will be performed at United Defense's Santa Clara, Calif. facility. Vehicle production will be completed at United Defense's Anniston, Alabama facilities in partnership with the Anniston Army Depot and Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. The work is expected to be completed by December 2006.

The OSTS-MBT is a tracked surrogate vehicle designed to operationally and visually simulate threat tanks during force-on-force training at the U.S. Army Combat Maneuver Training Centers in Ft. Polk, La., Ft. Irwin, Calif. and Hoenfels, Germany. The vehicle consists of an M113A3 chassis with an operational two-man turret equipped with simulated weapon systems and visual modifications.

United Defense designs, develops and produces combat vehicles, artillery, naval guns, missile launchers and precision munitions used by the U.S. Department of Defense and allies worldwide, and provides non-nuclear ship repair, modernization and conversion to the U.S. Navy and other U.S. Government agencies. "

United Defense Industries

Iama - WAW! When we use surogate tanks at Cincu, or Capu Midia?

And the big winner of the all around cheap, efficient, expandable weapon is : the RPG

"The weapon of choice for the Iraqi resistance is the rocket propelled grenade (RPG)-7."

George J. Mordica II
USA Center for Army Lessons Learned

by Gary Brecher

If you've been reading my columns for a while, you probably noticed I don't talk military hardware as much as most war buffs. There are a lot of people who'll talk all day about whether the Russian T-90 or the US Abrams is the best MBT. I don't do that much, for the simple reason that wars these days don't come down to one model of tank vs. another. It's pretty rare to find a war where both sides even use tanks. Most of the time it's guerrilla vs. guerrilla, or conventional army vs. guerrilla. The odds of an all-out hi-tech war between two conventional armies like the US and Russia are about...oh, zero-point-zero. So it just doesn't matter that much whether their tanks could beat ours in some make-believe replay of the Kursk Salient. If you want to play that kind of war, buy a computer game. God knows there's enough of them. If you want to know how people make war now, in the real world, you need to study people, not hardware.

Sad but true, boys: war these days is more like Social Studies than Metal Shop. It's about tribal vendettas, military intelligence, propaganda, money -- just about everything except pure hardware.

Don't get me wrong, I love the hardware as much as anybody. I used to spend every free hour, back before there was an internet, going over those big heavy reference books in the library: Jane's Tanks, Jane's Missile Systems, Jane's Combat Vehicles. I had those things memorized. Seriously, you could open any of Jane's handbooks at random, read me the name of a weapons system, and I'd recite its stats from memory -- Norwegian anti-ship missiles, South African APCs, you name it.

But eventually I had to face the facts: most of those weapons are never going to get used. If you look at all the real wars going on right now, you come across the same two weapons, over and over: the AK-47 and the RPG-7 -- both Russian designs, and both older than your Dad.

They're the weapons that matter, because they're already out there, millions of units, enough to equip every guerrilla army in the world, simple enough that you can teach a peasant kid with hookworm and a room-temperature IQ to fire them, and cheap enough to buy in bulk.

And the RPG is the best of all, even better than the Kalashnikov. This simple little beauty just keeps getting more and more effective. This cheap little dealie, nothing but a launcher tube and a few rockets shaped like two ice-cream cones glued together, has kicked our ass (and Russia's too) all over the world since back when the Beatles were still together. In fact, more and more guerrilla armies are making the RPG their basic infantry weapon, with the AK used to protect the RPG gunners, who provide the offensive punch. The Chechens fighting the Russian Army are so high on it that they've switched their three-man combat teams from two riflemen and an RPG gunner to two RPG gunners with a rifleman to protect them.

There's another stat that's even more important right now: the RPG has inflicted more than half -- half! -- of US casualties in Iraq. This is the weapon that's hurting us. And it's been doing that for one hell of a long time.

The Soviets created the RPG for use by Soviet infantry squads against US tanks, APCs and personnel in that big NATO/Warsaw Pact war everybody was dreaming of back in the sixties. The design was an example of beautiful simplicity. It was a classic of Warsaw-Pact reverse-engineering. Warsaw Pact weapons designers had this attitude that it was a waste of time to design from scratch when you could count on your spies (and the Russians had the best spies in the world back then) to get you the specs on the weapons other countries had spent billions designing. So they just put together a cross between the two best shoulder-fired anti-armor weapons around, the Wehrmacht Panzerfaust and the US Army bazooka. And that was the birth of the most important weapon in contemporary warfare.

The RPG got its start against our guys in Vietnam. The Viet Cong and NVA used them as squad-level anti-armor weapons, and they were so damn good at it that we never got our money's worth from the tanks and APCs we sent over. Our APC back then was a really lousy dumptruck, the M113 -- basically a light-tank chassis with flat slabs of aluminum on the sides and top.

Sometimes you can see how good a design is just by the way it looks. One look at an M113 and you can see that this was a lousy vehicle. It was about as tall as Yao Ming, which meant it was a real big target. The aluminum armor didn't have firing ports, so the soldiers inside just had to put their helmets over their balls, close their eyes and hope the crew would open the hatch and let them out ASAP. The armor was just thick enough to slow the thing down, but not nearly enough to stop an RPG round. Which is no surprise when you know that an RPG armor-piercing round can penetrate 300mm of rolled steel -- more than a foot of steel. Not a bad punch for such a little weapon to pack.

GIs who'd seen what an RPG hit could do to an M113 got in the habit of saying, "I'll walk, thanks." The RPG warhead does something called "spalling," which means the warhead turns the aluminum side armor of an APC into molten shrapnel which goes zipping through the guts of everybody inside like a Benihana chef's knife, only it's a knife as hot as the surface of the sun.

If GIs in Nam did have to ride an M113, they wore a lot of St. Christopher medals and sat on top. They were a lot less scared of getting shot by a sniper than of being hit by an RPG sitting inside.

We had nothing like it and still don't. We had the LAW, another shoulder-fired rocket originally designed to penetrate armor, but it wasn't nearly as easy to carry, because it didn't have the reuseable launcher the RPG featured. If you wanted to throw a dozen rockets at an enemy bunker, you had to carry a dozen LAWs along, whereas the RPG gunner needed just one launcher and a sack full of warheads.

Nam was just the beginning of the RPG's career. Just think back to Mogadishu 1993. The whole Blackhawk Down mess happened because some Afghan Jihadis who'd retired to Mogadishu -- guess it was nice'n'restful compared to Kandahar -- showed the Somalis how to use the RPG-7 as an anti-aircraft weapon, which its Russian designers never even thought of. The RPG was the key to the whole battle that ended up killing 18 Ranger and Delta guys (Jeez, remember when 18 GIs dead was supposed to be "unacceptably high" losses?), getting us to bug out from Somalia, and getting Ridley Scott's directing career back on track.

First the Somali RPG gunners, firing up from the streets where they'd dug holes to channel the big rocket backblast, hit our Blackhawks, bringing them down in the maze of slums. That drew our troops into the slums, where everybody from toddlers to grandmas started potshotting them with AKs.

The Afghans worked out how to use RPGs as AA back in the 80s, fighting the Soviets. I guess it was a little bit of poetic justice that the first helicopters to get brought down were Russian. The Afghans didn't have much to use against choppers except captured Russian heavy 14.5 cal. machineguns, which didn't have enough punch to bring down the Mi-24. And Reagan, the wimpiest hawk that ever flew, waited five long years to give the Mujahideen the Stingers that could take down an Mi-24 every time. So the Afghans started playing around with using the RPG against Russian CAS.

They came up with some great improvisations. There's nothing like war to bring out the inventor in people! One thing the Afghans figured out was how to use the self-destruct device in the warhead to turn the RPG into an airburst SA missile. See, the RPG comes with a safety feature designed to self-destruct after the missile's gone 920 meters. So if you fire on up at a chopper from a few hundred meters away, at the right angle, you get an airburst just as effective as SA missiles that cost about a thousand times more.

When the Chechens took on the post-Soviet Russian army in 1994, the good old RPG was the key weapon once again. By this time, the Russians must've been cursing the name of the man who designed the thing. What the Chechens found out in their first war against the Russians in 1994 was that the RPG is the perfect weapon for urban combat. The Russians sent huge columns of armor into the streets of the city, and the Chechens waited on the upper floors, where they couldn't be spotted by choppers but still held the high ground. They waited till the tanks and APCs were jammed into the little streets, then hit the first and last vehicles with RPGs -- classic anti-armor technique. That left the whole column stopped dead, and all they had to do was keep feeding warheads into the launchers, knocking out vehicle after vehicle by hitting it on the thin top armor. The Russians were slaughtered, and they had to pull back and settle for saturating the city with massed artillery fires, which killed lots of old ladies but didn't do any harm to the fighters. So basically the RPG singlehandedly lost the Russians their first Chechen War.

Which brings us to Iraq, now. The first key to the RPG's effectiveness is availability, and it turns out that the one thing Iraq had more than enough of, in spite of all those sanctions, was RPG launchers and rounds. Saddam's army had an official license from the Russians to produce RPGs in Iraqi factories, and they made so many that, when Saddam went down, there were piles of launchers with plenty of anti-armor and anti-personnel rounds in most Iraqi towns. And after the Iran-Iraq War and Gulf War I, so many Iraqi men had trained on the RPG that there were plenty of gunners and instructors to teach the new generation how to use it.

Everything about the RPG design seems like it was designed to be used in Iraqi cities. It's got one of the shortest arming ranges of any shoulder-fired anti-armor weapons, which means you can fire it at a Hummer coming right down the street. It's light enough, at 15 pounds, for even the wimpiest teenager to run through alleys with. It's simple enough for any amateur to use -- the original non-camera example of "point and shoot."

US doctrine for countering the RPG always stressed looking for the flash when it's fired, and the blue-grey smoke trail it leaves. There are two problems with that, though. In the first place, unlike, say, the TOW, the RPG is unguided, so once it's launched, it doesn't do much good to kill the gunner. You're still going to get hit. Second, it's not easy to see the blast or the smoke trail in one of these Iraqi "urban canyons." Too many walls to hide behind.

Our doctrine also used to stress laying down heavy fire in the general direction of the RPG launcher, to suppress further firings and hopefully kill the crew. But when you're fighting in the middle of an Iraqi city, that kind of general fire is going to kill a lot of hunkered-down civilians along with the RPG crew. And that doesn't look good on TV. More importantly, it makes you a lot of new enemies among the people whose cousins got shot.

Even if the RPG doesn't disable a vehicle, the blast radius of the anti-armor round is four meters, which means anybody in the area is going to be seeing little birdies for a good few minutes, deaf from the blast, temporarily blind, not to mention very scared and pissed off. Once you've got the occupying troops in a position like that -- I mean literally blind and deaf -- you're in a guerrilla strategist's idea of Heaven. Troops in that mood tend to start firing blind, which makes everybody hate them even more, which suits the guerrilla right down to the ground.

Waw! Waw! Waw!

Iama

oh man...what next...does it have internet connection?

Who? The RPG?

Iama

And now, something hot! From a hot zone, China and Taiwan problem:

"China Publishes Defense White Paper


China published on Monday a white paper on national defense, reaffirming its determination to crush any "Taiwan independence" attempt at all costs and reassure the world of its pursuit of peaceful development that will pose "no obstacle or threat to any one."

The 85-page white paper, the fifth of its kind since 1995, was titled "China's National Defense in 2004" and released by the Information Office of the State Council, China's cabinet.

The publication of the white paper was intended to "illustrate China's national defense policies and the progress made in national defense and army building over the past two years," said the information office.

"The separatist activities of the 'Taiwan independence' forces have increasingly become the biggest immediate threat to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as peace and stability on both sides of the Taiwan Straits and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole," the white paper says.

"The Taiwan authorities under Chen Shui-bian have recklessly challenged the status quo that both sides of the Straits belong to one and the same China, and markedly escalated the 'Taiwan independence' activities designed to split China."

"The situation in the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits is grim," it says.

The paper also criticizes the United States for its continuous arms sales to Taiwan which, it says, increases both "quantitatively and qualitatively," despite Washington's repeated commitment to adhere to the one-China policy and oppose "Taiwan independence."

"It is the sacred responsibility of the Chinese armed forces to stop the 'Taiwan independence' forces from splitting the country," says the paper.

"We will never allow anyone to split Taiwan from China through whatever means," the paper says. "Should the Taiwan authorities go so far as to make a reckless attempt that constitutes a major incident of 'Taiwan independence', the Chinese people and armed forces will resolutely and thoroughly crush it at any cost."

The white paper reveals in details China's defense spending and how the money was used in the past two years. It says that China, whose GDP (gross domestic product) in 2002 and 2003 was 10,517.234 billion yuan (1.267 trillion US dollars) and 11,725.194 billion yuan (1.412 trillion dollars) respectively, only spent 170.778 billion yuan (20.57 billion dollars) and 190.787 billion yuan (22.98 billion dollars) respectively on national defense in the corresponding year. China's defense budget for 2004 is 211.701 billion yuan (25.50 billion dollars).

"The absolute amount of China's defense expenditure has long been lower than those of some major Western countries, and the proportion to the GDP and state financial expenditure has also been relatively low," says the paper, citing figures of 2003 which showed that China's defense expenditure amounted to only 5.69 percent of that of the United States, 56.78 percent of that of Japan, 37.07 percent of that of the United Kingdom, and 75.94 percent of that of France.

The increased part of China's defense expenditure has primarily been used for increasing the salaries and allowances of the military personnel, further improving the social insurance system for servicemen, supporting the structural and organizational reform of the military, increasing investment in the development of high-caliber talents in the military, and moderately increasing equipment expenses, the white paper explains.

The white paper also makes detailed introduction of China's military reform with Chinese characteristics, management of the defense assets, military service system, national defense mobilization and reserve force building, science, technology and industry for national defense, and relations between the armed forces and the people, as well as the country's security cooperation with the international community.


FACTS & FIGURES: CHINA'S NATIONAL DEFENSE

--Reducing the troops by 200,000:
Since the mid-1980s, China has twice downsized its military by a total of 1.5 million. In September 2003, the Chinese government decided to further reduce 200,000 troops by the end of 2005 to maintain the size of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at 2.3 million. The current restructuring, while cutting down the numbers, aims at optimal force structures, smoother internal relations and better quality.


--Defense expenditure:
Pursuant to the National Defense Law, the Chinese government follows the guiding principle of the coordinated development of national defense and economy. China's GDP in 2002 and 2003 was 10,517.234 billion yuan and 11,725.194 billion yuan respectively. Its defense expenditure in 2002 and 2003 was 170.778 billion yuan and 190.787 billion yuan respectively. Its defense budget for 2004 is 211.701 billion yuan.

The increased part of the defense expenditure has primarily been used for increasing the salaries and allowances of the military personnel, further improving the social insurance system for servicemen, supporting the structural and organizational reform of the military; increasing investment in the development of high-caliber talents in the military; moderately increasing equipment expenses.

China's defense expenditure lower than major Western countries': In the past two years, the percentages of China's annual defense expenditure to its GDP and to the state financial expenditure in the same period have remained basically stable. For most of the years since the 1990s, the growth rate of China's defense expenditure has been lower than that of the state financial expenditure.

The absolute amount of China's defense expenditure has long been lower than those of some major Western countries, and the proportion to the GDP and state financial expenditure has also been relatively low. In 2003, China's defense expenditure amounted to only 5.69 percent of that of the United States, 56.78 percent of that of Japan, 37.07 percent of that of the United Kingdom, and75.94 percent of that of France.


--10 million militia members:
As an important component of the Chinese armed forces and the assistant and backup forces of the PLA, the militia force is an armed organization composed of the masses not released from their regular work. The militia is divided into two categories - the ordinary and the primary militia. The primary militia comprises rapid reaction detachments, infantry detachments, specialized technical detachments and detachments with corresponding specialties. There are now 10 million primary militia members in China.


--Defense Education:
In 2003, some 1,100 colleges and universities and 11,500 senior high schools throughout China conducted military training as required and more than 8 million students received such training.


--Peaceful use of military technology:
China has made remarkable progress in putting military industrial technology to civil use in the past two years. In 2003, the output value of civilian products rose by 20 percent as compared with that of the previous year, accounting for more than 65 percent of the total output value of the defense-related science, technology and industry.
China's mainland now has nine nuclear power generating sets in operation, the total installed capacity of which is 7.01 million KW. Another two, each with an installed capacity of 1.06 million KW, are now under construction. In 2003, China's nuclear power production was 43.3 billion KWH, accounting for 2.3 percent of its total power production.


--41 successful space launches:
Major breakthroughs have been made in space technologies for civil use. Since October 1996, China has succeeded in 41 space launches. The successful launching of the "Shenzhou 5" spaceship in October 2003 sent China's first astronaut into space. A lunar probe project was officially started in January 2004, and a lunar orbiting exploration is scheduled to be carried out by the end of 2007.


--3,362 peacekeepers:
Since its first dispatch of military observers to the United Nations peacekeeping operations in 1990, China has sent 3,362 military personnel to 13 UN peacekeeping operations. Since January 2000, China has sent 404 policemen to the peacekeeping operations in six UN peacekeeping task areas including East Timor. In 2004, China has sent 59 policemen to East Timor, Liberia, Afghanistan, Kosovo of Serbia-Herzegovina and Haiti, and a 125-member organic police detachment to Haiti to serve with MINUSTAH at the request of the UN. In the past 14 years, six Chinese servicemen lost their lives and dozens wounded in UN peacekeeping operations.
At present, 845 PLA personnel are working in eight UN peacekeeping task areas.


--Military relations with more than 150 countries:
China has established military relations with more than 150 countries in the world. It has set up over 100 military attache's offices in its embassies abroad, and 85 countries have set up military attache's offices in China. Over the past two years, the PLA has sent high-level military delegations to over 60 countries, and played host to over 130 delegations of military leaders from over 70 countries.


--Military students exchanged:
In recent years, the PLA has sent over 1,000 military students to more than 20 countries, and 19 military colleges and universities in China have established inter-collegiate exchange relations with their counterparts in 25 countries, including the United States and Russia. Over the past two years, 1,245 military personnel from 91 countries have come to study in Chinese military colleges and universities, and officers from 44 of these countries have participated in the International Symposium Course hosted by the PLA National Defense University.


--Mine clearance efforts:
China attaches great importance to the solution of the humanitarian issue arising from landmines. After providing assistance to Eritrea in 2002, China sent another group of mine clearance experts to that country to give guidance on de-mining operations in 2003, trained a total of 120 mine clearance specialists for Eritrea and provided the country with de-mining equipment. (ends)


The full text of the English translation of the 2004 White Paper is available on the website of the People’s Daily newspaper, at: http://english.people.com.cn/whitepaper/de...efense2004.html "

Source: People’s Daily online

Iama

Since Tibet we know how much hogwash can come out of the peacefull Chinese leaders too. Who are they kidding ? Look at a map. How can the Taiwansese fly be a "threat" to the pachyderm ?

They disgust me with such talk. I would better have them say flatly : "ok, Taiwan was ours and we want it back because it's a nice pole of economic development". I wouldn't necessarily agree with them but I would at least respect their position for what it is. Low grade hypocrisy I can't stand much anymore.

Peace loving China and peace loving Israel... a! and peace loving USA....

From sinodefence:

"25 December 2004) The Pentagon’s undersecretary of defence for policy Doug Feith accused top Israeli defence ministry official on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) deal between Israel and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and claimed that this has caused a confidence crisis between the Pentagon and the Israeli MoD.
Israel’s Channel Two television reported on 15 December that Feith had demanded the resignation of retired Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, the widely respected and longtime director-general of Israel’s MoD. According to the reports, Feith was ‘outraged’ that he was not informed the UAV sale to China few years ago, and demanded the resignation of retired Maj. Gen. Amos Yaron, the widely respected and long-time director-general of Israel’s MoD.

This is also the first time that the existence of such a deal between China and Israel is confirmed. China reportedly acquired some unknown number of the Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI)’s Harpy Attack UAV in 1994. In summer 2004 some of these UAVs were sent back to Israel to be upgraded for better performance. The Pentagon has already demanded that Israel not to deliver these UAVs to China, even though they are properties of the PRC.

Harpy is the armed UAV developed by IAI in the 1990s. It is a unique weapon system with features of both UAV and cruise missile. Launched from a ground vehicle or surface warship far away from the battle zone, the Harpy UAV can detect, attack and destroy radar emitters in all-weather conditions, day/night over a distance of 500kg. Once an enemy radar is detected and verified, the UAV transitions into a near vertical dive and destroy the target with its high explosive warhead.

As well as in service with the Israeli Defence Force, the Harpy UAV has also been exported to Turkey and India. The Western intelligence first identified Harpy UAVs in service with the PLA in the joint PLA exercise held near the Taiwan Strait in 2004. The Bush administration has pressured Israel to ‘roll back’ on its defence relations with China."

Iama

From what i remember - i read from a israely site, this UAV was sold to India as well...

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